From the Bookshelf of Retro Reads…

Vittoria Cottage (Dering Family #1)

D.E. Stevenson

Start date: August 1, 2020

Finish date: August 31, 2020

Discussion: Group Reads

Discussion leader: Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽

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Group Reads

Group Read 5th of October 2025 Thalia NON spoilers thread
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Group Read 5th of October 2025 Thalia SPOILERS thread
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What Members Thought

May 29, 2015 Julie Durnell rated it really liked it

Shelves: england-uk

A charming slice of cottage life with Caroline and her family and villagers-oh so sweet!

17 likes · Like · see review

Aug 08, 2020 Susan in NC rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Enjoyable book about life in a small English village post-World War II. Read with the Retro Reads group, a delightful escape from pandemic worries.

Wonderful characters - my kindle version had a lovely introduction by Alexander McCall Smith, who pointed out that D.E. Stevenson’s books were unique to the time, because they were just normal - regular people living everyday lives, generally in small villages. No psychoses or neuroses, not a lot happens, but he points out that’s why people enjoyed th ...more

13 likes · Like · see review

May 18, 2014 CLM rated it really liked it

Shelves: family-story, re-read, fiction, uk, series, 20th-century

The kind of enjoyable reread where you say, "Yes, I will read one chapter before I turn out the light," and then you say, "I remember reading the book that comes *after* this one better than I recall this, so perhaps I will read two chapters," and then you read the whole book when you should have gone to sleep at midnight...
4 1/2 stars - nothing extraordinary but extremely pleasant. ...more

11 likes · Like · see review

Aug 03, 2020 Barb in Maryland rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: romance, historical-fiction

I really enjoyed this quiet novel of English village life c.1949.
I found Caroline, our heroine, to be warm, loving, and absolutely charming. All of the older, adult characters are well nicely fleshed out and recognizable as real people, with quirks of their own. The young adults (Caroline's daughters, Derek) tend to be a bit more one-note in presentation.

I really like the author's mix of day to day life as it is lived and the philosophical musings about life, happiness, and so on. DES is quite s ...more

9 likes · Like · see review

Jan 09, 2019 Amy rated it really liked it

Shelves: brit-trip, read-as-an-audiobook, 2018

Lovely slice of life story set in post-war England.

4 likes · Like · see review

Jul 09, 2022 Lynnie rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: post-war, read-in-2022, invitation-to-tea, furrowedmiddlebrow

My first D.E. Stevenson. I don't really know what to make of this story! It started off very enjoyable but then it flew off in all sorts of directions - chapter endings were abrupt and it was almost like reading lots of short stories about the villagers - a lot were introduced randomly it seemed - loosely connected. Also I started to feel a bit depressed! A lot of the characters had to keep a stiff upper lip! The ending was abrupt too.
...more

3 likes · Like · see review