WILD MOUNTAIN THYME

by Rosamunde Pilcher ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 2, 1979

Pilcher demonstrates just what can be done with a mini-romance when fueled by coincidence and happy accident; she idles this with such affectionate involvement in personages and scenery that you're shamelessly delighted when everything sorts out nicely in the end. The folderol begins as Oliver, a British angry-young-playwright, kidnaps his motherless two-year-old son Tommy, rescuing him from the maternal grandparents, and from what Oliver sees as a future ""slotted, labeled, trapped on the conveyor belt of meaningless tradition."" Saddled with the tot, passion spent a bit, Oliver barges in on nice Victoria--in whom he'd had a typically brief interest three years before. He bullies her into a trip to visit Roddy, a middle-aged bachelor author whose brother is the laird of a Highland preserve. After an idyllic oh-and-ah trip through mighty peaks and valleys, the three arrive just after the lalrd's funeral. Roddy is charming and kind--in fact everyone is, except Oliver (who is working on a new play). Then who should show up but Roddy's nephew John, an international banker whom Victoria had met in London. . . oh well. You'll hope, as Oliver becomes increasingly impossible, that Victoria and good responsible John will pair off, and that all will be well for dear Tommy. They do and it is. In the meantime there are keen glimpses of loch and moor and grand old house. There are also sly digs at Oliver's craft, as lousy dialogue comes aborning in his soul. And there's blessedly no Highland dialect--which can curdle pudding. Feather light--and it flies.

Pub Date: March 2, 1979

ISBN: 0312961235

Page Count: -

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1979

Categories: FICTION