
A Long Way From Home
Rosamunde Pilcher(Author)
Penguin Books Ltd (Publisher)
Will be published approx. on 17. September 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
320 pages
978-1-4059-9743-0 (ISBN)
Description
Rediscover the brilliance of A Long Way From Home in the Mermaid Collection - classic books by popular pioneering female authors republished to delight new generations of readers. Pre-order this gorgeous new edition now.
A sweeping and page-turning romance that sees eighteen-year-old Katy Kelsey flee her Scottish Hebridean island for the Mediterranean in search of belonging, family and new horizons . . .
With a foreword by Claire Daverley
'Kelsey was killed and his wife had the child a fortnight later, but she died. I don't know if she even saw the baby. And then this aunt took the baby . . .'
Katy Kelsey is an orphan. Raised on the Scottish Hebridean Isle of Folda by her aunt, she comes of age not knowing her true ancestry. When her aunt dies, Katy - fearing the future - discovers that long ago her grandfather, Charles Kelsey, once tried to help her. Setting off for London, she seeks him out to beg his assistance.
But instead of her grandfather, she finds dashing family lawyer Adam Maxwell. Adam - wanting to help - takes pity on Katy, flying her to the family villa on the Spanish island of Santa Carina.
There she meets the other Kelseys - who resent this cuckoo in their midst. And Katy fears they'll uncover the secret reason she came to find her grandfather.
The only one she dares trust is Adam. But can a simple island girl really trust her own complicated feelings?
Praise for Rosamunde Pilcher
'Pilcher's storytelling skills are beguiling' The Times
'Pilcher wrote absorbing page-turners, taking what was called "romantic fiction" to an altogether higher, wittier level' Guardian
A sweeping and page-turning romance that sees eighteen-year-old Katy Kelsey flee her Scottish Hebridean island for the Mediterranean in search of belonging, family and new horizons . . .
With a foreword by Claire Daverley
'Kelsey was killed and his wife had the child a fortnight later, but she died. I don't know if she even saw the baby. And then this aunt took the baby . . .'
Katy Kelsey is an orphan. Raised on the Scottish Hebridean Isle of Folda by her aunt, she comes of age not knowing her true ancestry. When her aunt dies, Katy - fearing the future - discovers that long ago her grandfather, Charles Kelsey, once tried to help her. Setting off for London, she seeks him out to beg his assistance.
But instead of her grandfather, she finds dashing family lawyer Adam Maxwell. Adam - wanting to help - takes pity on Katy, flying her to the family villa on the Spanish island of Santa Carina.
There she meets the other Kelseys - who resent this cuckoo in their midst. And Katy fears they'll uncover the secret reason she came to find her grandfather.
The only one she dares trust is Adam. But can a simple island girl really trust her own complicated feelings?
Praise for Rosamunde Pilcher
'Pilcher's storytelling skills are beguiling' The Times
'Pilcher wrote absorbing page-turners, taking what was called "romantic fiction" to an altogether higher, wittier level' Guardian
Reviews / Votes
Pilcher's storytelling skills are beguiling * The Times * Pilcher wrote absorbing page-turners, taking what was called "romantic fiction" to an altogether higher, wittier level * Guardian *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 129 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
197 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4059-9743-0 (9781405997430)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Rosamunde Pilcher
A Long Way From Home
E-Book
approx. 09/2026
Penguin Books Ltd
€8.99
Not yet available
Person
Rosamunde Pilcher was born in west Cornwall in 1924. Her father, a civil servant, worked in Burma, so that her mother mostly raised Rosamunde and her sister alone. She later ascribed this solitary childhood to firing her fierce imagination. Having written stories all this time, she made her first short story sale aged just nineteen. This was her vocation, and she began producing novels under the penname of Jane Fraser for Mills and Boon. In her sixties she wrote The Shell Seekers, some of it loosely based on her own wartime experiences, which became a huge international bestseller, particularly in America and Germany - a country that has now made over 100 TV films of her stories. Pilcher has been described as an 'unromantic' romantic novelist, adding both grit and realism to tales that are strongly tied to their locations in time and place, particularly her beloved Cornwall. She died in 2019, aged 94.