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Coming Home

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"Wednesday's child is full of woe."

Sophie Grant certainly had her woes. Her parents had died and left a trust fund she couldn't touch; her home was condemned and she'd just lost her job! She had no option but to stay with Matthew Trevelyan in his isolated Cornish house.

Then her woes really began. Sophie fell in love....

187 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

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About the author

Patricia Wilson

239 books179 followers
Patricia Wilson (1929 – 2010) was a best-selling writer of 53 romance novels for the Mills & Boon publisher from 1986 to 2004. She placed her novels primarily in England, Spain or France.

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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
Profile Image for Sandra.
746 reviews6 followers
July 19, 2016
Sophie Grant (who’s 22) is having bad luck lately. Her home is being demolished so a parking lot/shopping arcade can be put up, she lost her job, and she is recovering from the flu and another virus. So when she gets a letter through her solicitor from Matthew Trevelyan (34), her late father’s stepbrother, enquiring about her and inviting her to stay at his home in Cornwall for awhile, she accepts. She only met Matthew once, when she was thirteen. She went to his wedding with her parents nine years ago. (His wife Delphine died in an accident seven years ago.)

Matthew is now a famous author and has been in America for the past four years. He has now returned to his home in Cornwall. When Sophie arrives at his home, Trembath House, he is surprised. He expected someone younger, a teenager, not a grown woman. He seems to have lost track of time with Sophie but he feels an obligation to check on her since he was very close to his stepbrother, Quentin, who died with his wife Iris (Sophie’s mother) four years ago in an archaeological dig in Africa. Eventually Sophie meets Matthew’s eight-year-old son Philip (Pip), she rests and recuperates for awhile, and finds herself falling for Matthew. But Sophie wonders, is he still in love with his dead wife?

This was a very enjoyable read. I liked the tall, dark, and gorgeous hero Matthew. His son Pip was cute. I liked the gothic setting, the house on the cliffs by the sea in Cornwall. Sophie was a likable heroine. Matthew and Sophie had good chemistry.

A lovely romance by Patricia Wilson.


Cornwall
description
Profile Image for StMargarets.
3,223 reviews634 followers
July 24, 2019
3.5 stars - it got a little saggy toward the end.

I have to do a hair and eyes roll call first:

Copper-colored hair and violet eyes - heroine
Dark hair and amber eyes- hero
Blonde hair and sky-blue eyes - hero’s son

The author uses these differences to underscore how these characters are not related, yet have ties from the past. The hero is the heroine’s step-uncle. The heroine looks like the step-grandma the hero loved as a child. The son is a dead-ringer for his now-dead, evil mother who made the hero’s life hell and the heroine’s father’s life hell.

And yet, they all come to together in the hero’s ancestral hall in Cornwall and make a home together by the end of the story.

Hero is a best-selling writer who has given up on happiness after the debacle of his first marriage. Heroine is an independent woman who rejected her cold parent’s inheritance since it forced her to be a university student in order to inherit. She has been working in London and supporting herself until she was made redundant and she lost her place to live. She has decided to go to university – not because she’s interested – but because she can at least live on her inheritance for a few years. The hero has offered a place to stay for six months until school starts.

The story includes Cornwall delights – the cliff walks, the dangerous tides, the tales of smugglers, the gossiping villagers and the old family home, full of tragedy.

The story also includes Patricia Wilson delights – the sweet, sexy oblivious heroine. The smitten hero. The gentle misunderstandings.

For once, I was happy the heroine didn’t pursue her university education. School had been a place of trauma for her as a boarder and she had no great love of learning even after her years of working. She and the H can save the inheritance money for their children.
Profile Image for Leona.
1,772 reviews18 followers
September 29, 2015
This is definitely one of my favorites by Patricia Wilson. I absolutely adored the hero. He was so delicious.(sigh) The heroine was delightful in an eccentric, funny, adorable way. I loved her inner musings and her "Lucile Ball" type antics. Usually those two factors together drive me crazy, but here it all just worked and I found myself laughing out loud.

The descriptions of Cornwall were breathtaking. The secondary characters added to the story and the evil OW really was an evil tramp out to get her hooks into the hero. Who, by the way, saw her coming a mile away and ran!!!!

Well done.
Profile Image for Dianna.
609 reviews117 followers
January 3, 2018
I think Wilson is simply incapable of gothic. I mean, it was all there: a hero in a remote house on a dangerous storm -swept cliff above the sea, with a dead wife and a son he couldn’t bear to have in a house that has no family portraits on the walls and traumatic secrets and the long ago tragic death of the heroine’s grandmother, who the heroine looks exactly like, and the hero is a bit fixated on ( she was his stepmother) and he also has a married girlfriend who tells the heroine in the first few pages that the hero is staying in the house ‘out of spite.’

Add to that a red and purple orphan girl and there should have been ghosts and murders and incest and crazy housekeepers but: no. The red and purple orphan girl may be too polite to ask a few nosy probing questions, but she’s not having any nonsense not of her own making.

Sophie, the red and purple orphan girl, had the flu. She’s also lost her job and her home and needs somewhere to live for the next 6 months, so she turns to NOT uncle Matthew, her dead father’s much younger stepbrother.

Sophie’s parents were archeologists killed in a landslide in Africa and Sophie didn’t care for them much. In their will they left her money if she immediately started some form of history related degree and Sophie got real cross at them for being sucky parents trying to control her beyond the grave and said no thanks and walked away from the money.

4 years later she’s 22 and getting ready to start university in September.

Will she, though? A lot can happen to a girl alone in a gothic house with a cranky sexy man who has a lot of secrets and is fascinated by red and purple and feistiness.

So Matthew writes bestsellers that have been made into movies and are full of graphic violence and sex, so he’s absolutely perfect for the role of gothic hero if only Sophie was at all interested in playing gothic heroine but she’s not. She wants to play romantic comedy heroine which is a head adjustment for poor old Matthew who spends much of the book baffled. And aroused but he hides that pretty well. He gets in a couple of punishing kisses but doesn’t go for Wilson’s other favourite: the boob grab. Or if he does, I missed it. I think the genre change really threw off his game.

He manages to keep a lid on most of it and gets comfortably into the zone of alpha jealous lover when confronting Sophie’s other potential romantic partners and he gets to be silky to one of them at least once, which I’m sure he enjoyed immensely. I have no patience for silky talk I think it’s ridiculous and I’ll tolerate it from Sara Craven, who is a Goddess, but no one else.

Anyway, I was trying the make the point that Matthew’s writing career is portable, and doesn’t need to be done in Cornwall. And when the reasoning behind why the son goes to boarding school comes out it’s also a very decent opportunity to find another school for the boy in a neighbourhood where they can buy a nice house that’s also close to where Sophie is at university and eventually come back to live in the wild Cornish place when she’s finished her study, and still spend most of the year there anyway, when no one is at school.

But look IT’s FINE. And sure, put a banner on this book that says ‘today’s woman’ and still give me a story about honourable intentions and virgins who are mistaken for whores because they live with unmarried men, because 1996 was 20 years ago and is basically still the Victorian era of HPlandia, and a whole lot of other stuff that’s just annoying. My fantasy is still that women get to do whatever they damn well like and for them to like more stuff than houses and babies. Which are great, but if you can have more, why not have more?

And a heroine who can hold her own against a cranky hero is not actually a revolutionary concept and none of this is Wilson’s fault. I’m sure she had nothing to do with ‘today’s woman’ as a marketing strategy and all she wanted was to invert the gothic trope, which she did in a book that was pretty fun.

Profile Image for Daisy Daisy.
706 reviews41 followers
May 31, 2019
If you can get past the slight ickyness that the H is in fact her deceased fathers step brother then this is actually a rather lovely story.

The h has lost her job, is about to have her house demolishes and is rather poorly to boot when she gets an offer to stay with her "uncle" until she is ready to go to Uni in September. Shes put it off for a couple of years because her parents were terrible and the money they left her when they dies could only be spent in the pursuit of an academic degree. Figuring her parents were pretty terrible anyway she tells the executor to go poke it and strikes out n her own for a while until she decides what she wants to do.

With nowhere else really to go without inflicting herself on her friends she takes up uncle not uncles offer and moves to Cornwall with all her not that many worldly goods. She hasn't seem him since she was 13 at his wedding to an evil OW and he scared her because he is a black Cornish (imagine Poldark/Celt)

Turns out wifey was evil but is conveniently dead but she did not leave a good impression on our grumpy H who has a kind of secret son who he hides away because he doesn't want him upsetting because he doesn't look like him. All Trevelans are dark of hair just like Baratheons are while baby daddy/Evil OW was a Lannister and golden haired. His (and her dads parents and her parents marriage) were also pretty crap reinforcing his opinion.

Our intrepid h likes to stick her foot in it though and doesn't care if she upsets his applecart. His son isn't happy at boarding school and she rather likes him. stuff opinion and het him home where he will be happy. She also gets to visit a rather naff miniature village located in Cornwall that I also had to suffer as a child but she and H son clearly had far more fun there than I did and weren't bored to tears. Well done PW for adding real Cornwall in there!

Our h has to head up to London for her bezzies wedding and the H sees her with her ex boyfriend and gets a serious monk on with jealousy. After some suitable angst h runs away and when H finds her he is so relieved he becomes sick of hiding his attraction and they jump into bed with each other.

h is happy but thinking he doesn't love her immediately leaves. However, she realises within 10 mins she hurt him and goes back and declares her love. This h is pretty feisty she has a spine and goes for what she wants without worrying what others think. The H is also pretty nice once he pulls his head out of his butt and all his attitude hides a heart of gold.

There is a lovely little epilogue with the h expecting her first dark of hair child and still causing all kinds of hell for the besotted H.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for *CJ*.
5,106 reviews626 followers
March 25, 2018
"Coming Home" is the story of Sophie and Matthew.
When Sophie's parents die on an expedition, the forever abandoned daughter finds herself in a gloom, further exacerbated by her diminishing finances.
When her father's stepbrother Matthew, whom she last saw on his wedding when she was 13 invites her to his isolated Cornish Trevelyan house, she takes him up due to her destitution..
However, both are far beyond each other's expectation.
Sophie is not the child Matthew imagined her to be, and Matthew is the dark horse which Sophie finds extremely difficult to be indifferent too.
Soon there is scorching attraction, complicated by the other men and women around them and his son Pip. Can blooming love conquer it all..
A damsel in distress full of gloom heroine who finds her spark with an obsessed hero, this had all the typical PW tropes- except the OM/OW drama was kept to minimum and h and H mostly spent time lost in one another. There is pushing away as expected, but ends on a sweet note.
Loads of complicated relationships in this one.
SWE/Unsafe
3.5/5
Profile Image for Asteria.
163 reviews14 followers
September 27, 2021
Rating: **4 stars**

This was an unexpectedly good read. No unnecessary plot stretch or over involvement of OW or OM, it's main focus was just on the developing dynamics of the couple. The FL was a bit naive and the ML a bit aloof too but that was completely overshadowed by their chemistry and headstrong personalities.
The ending was a bit of a shocker but overall had a pleasant time.
Profile Image for Megzy.
1,193 reviews70 followers
January 16, 2016
The Cornwall setting added a touch of mystery to this book.

He was her father's step brother and a famous author and he had forgotten that kids grow to become adults at some point. He also offered her a home, a refuge when she needed it the most. It reminded me of few regency ward/ guardian books I have read before,
Profile Image for DamsonDreamer.
636 reviews11 followers
May 31, 2023
Virginal sprite maddens stern, horny older guardian is one of my favourite tropes, I'm ashamed to admit (it's so ridiculously old fashioned but the power play can be shiveringly good!). In this story, 24 yr old down on her luck orphan Sophie (Sophrina) is offered a home in a clifftop cornish mansion (the jammy cow) with her father's stepbrother, dark, devilish novelist Matthew (the jammy cow). These two skirmish and torment each other from the off. It's often a bit silly but it's sometimes the aforementioned shiveringly good. He is a bit too fond of casting her as a child (to try to help himself keep his hands off her I assume) and she sometimes behaves like one. There's even a threatened spanking, ladies (it doesn't happen though). We get lines like ""I'm dangerous, Sophie, he murmured darkly. Just as dangerous as you imagined. Don't come so willingly" when he holds her. Just in case the Dom/sub vibe isn't clear enough, PW spells it out: "I'm not doing anything," "oh yes you are...you're standing there like a slave - submissive, docile, waiting for your fate".
There is interference from the couple running the local restaurant and from her group of young, London friends so he has ample opportunity to show off his possessive side. Like a good H he gets her into bed before the wedding. Phew! I really liked it.
Profile Image for Debby.
1,389 reviews25 followers
Read
September 12, 2022
The way they communicate, the way they behave, it felt awkward. Not one of Patricia Wilson’s best. No rating.
364 reviews7 followers
January 20, 2021
"Γυρισμός στο σπίτι" - Patricia Wilson, Σειρά Συλλογή, Νούμερο 1999, έτος έκδοσης στην Ελλάδα: 1999

Η Σόφι Γκράντ βρισκόταν σε απελπιστική θέση, καθώς τα προβλήματα διαδέχονταν το ένα το άλλο. Μετά το θάνατο των γονιών της, είχε κληρονομήσει ένα σημαντικό χρηματικό ποσό, που δεν μπορούσε να αγγίξει, το σπίτι της σε λίγο θα κατεδαφιζόταν και μόλις είχε χάσει τη δουλειά της! Δεν είχε λοιπόν άλλη επιλογή, παρά να δεχτεί την πρόσκληση του Μάθιου Τρεβέλιαν, να τη φιλοξενήσει στο απομονωμένο σπίτι του στην Κορνουάλη...
Και τότε εμφανίστηκε άλλο ένα πρόβλημα - το σοβαρότερο. Η Σόφι ερωτεύτηκε....

Profile Image for Caralyn Rubli.
301 reviews4 followers
Read
May 13, 2020
I wanted to punch the main character in the faceAll but homeless Sophie is offered a place to stay by her Step-uncle. As soon as she gets there she's making assumptions, arguing, being rude and meddling. I would have kicked her to the curb
Profile Image for More Books Than Time  .
2,517 reviews18 followers
May 14, 2021
A little disappointing. Some of her reactions didn't make much sense, even emotional sense.
Profile Image for Gabby.
1,072 reviews148 followers
February 7, 2017
After quite a bit of curiosity, I decided to pick up some 50c Mills & Boon books, just to see if they were any good. I read my first one at the end of last year (cheesy, sexy- pretty much what I expected)- so, I went back to the charity shop a week later and got more. Out of the pile, I decided to pick up "Coming Home" first. Wow, was this different.

While some aspects of this book, were quite cheesy, it was by far better than what I had heard (or read) of Mills & Boon books. So many twists and turns and a fantastic storyline other than "I want you so much". Of course, it didn't get a full five stars purely because Matthew, at the end decided to have a sudden miraculous character change from being the demanding, dark and secretive type to being the happy, smiling chap we see at the end of the book. This character change should have happened gradually over the whole course of the novel, rather than abruptly at the end.

Overall, good story; better than I expected.
Profile Image for RomLibrary.
5,789 reviews
May 20, 2023
"Wednesday's child is full of woe."

Sophie Grant certainly had her woes. Her parents had died and left a trust fund she couldn't touch; her home was condemned and she'd just lost her job! She had no option but to stay with Matthew Trevelyan in his isolated Cornish house.

Then her woes really began. Sophie fell in love....
Profile Image for Elektragedia.
557 reviews24 followers
August 22, 2016
bien, la cosa es que ame a Sophie en ciertos puntos y la odié en otros, pero como libro corto está bueno, si es una historia linda
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews

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