Esme Nicholls like so many women of her generation, lost her husband Alec in The Great War and she’s being mourning him for years. As time goes by, she tries to hold on to the precious memories she shared with Alec, and they only had seven months together when he marched off to war.

Her employer and friend Mrs. Fernlea Pickering notices Esme's looking rather peaked, she suggests spending the summer with her in Cornwall and where her brother Mr. Gilbert Edgerton owns a house called Esperance. Alec grew up in nearby Penzance, she hopes to be able to visit the cottage where he lived as a child, and it might make her feel closer to her deceased husband?

Esme works in Mrs. Pickering’s garden, it saved her from succumbing to her grief, and she enjoys looking at the beautiful scenery as she travels by train from Devon to Cornwall. Gilbert’s newly renovated garden and house is lovely, and he shares it with members of his regiment, former soldiers, Sebastian, Rory, Hal and Clarence. A group of artists, writers and misfits, and all have suffered terribly during the war and Esme hears men crying out during the night. Esme finds solace in Cornwall, she and Rory become friends, they share the love of gardening and she doesn't feel so old and downtrodden. Another member of the regiment visits Esperance house, it causes Esme to question what really happened during the war to Alec, and she feels betrayed.

The Visitors is a story set five years after the end of The Great War, it's about the lasting impact it had on the men who fought so bravely, many struggled mentally, and they couldn’t to return to work, and their marriages failed. Caroline Scott has a way of writing about WW I, that immediately grabs your attention and through her narrative, you feel and experience the burden of the war to end all wars. I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley and Simon and Schuster UK, brilliant, and five stars from me.

It pains me to say it but I am really struggling to think of something I liked about this book. The premise sounded good and the cover is beautiful but I was left sorely disappointed. I just could not connect to the characters or the plot. I actually thought the plot was quite dull, when I strip it back there is something there but it is lost in translation and I was bored. The characters are okay but as I have said I did not connect to them and did not particularly care what happened. Maybe I was not in the right frame of mind but I found this very disappointing.

I wasn't sure this book was for me. The plot was interesting but I feel like it wasn't my sort of genre.

This is the first book I have read by Caroline Scott and it definitely wont be the last. The storyline was good and the characters were endearing and I loved the setting. I really enjoyed reading it.

I have reviewed The Visitors for book recommendation site LoveReading.co.uk.

I have chosen it as a LoveReading Star Book and to appear as a Liz Robinson Book of the Month for December. As well as the review appearing on the site, it will also feature on the newsletter and social media.

I read this ARC for an honest review
All thoughts and opinions are mine

A first time author for me - not gonna lie the cover sucked me in
So glad it did - I really enjoyed this

Loved the use of language and a really great read

An engrossing read

With grateful thanks to netgalley for an early copy in return for an honest opinion.
Once again Caroline Scott has brought us another page turning book gripping from page one, quite an amazing author this tale is filled with emotion and what ifs I totally adored it and can highly recommend.

Another beautifully written book by Caroline Scott. This time the main character is female, (Esme) and finds herself in a house full of men, who had their lives changed after WW1.

Esme was widowed and is struggling to move on with her life. She starts to make friends, and discovers secrets, some of which will change her life forever.

A thought provoking book about war changes people.

From the very first pages you realise that this is a beautifully written story. It is set in the 1920s and harks backs to earlier times of the First World War throughout. Although a book was written in the 21st Century, it feels as if you are reading a classic of a much earlier time when writers took time to dwell and inger over small occasions and weave descriptive narratives amongst the storyline. I don't usually enjoy books which have much descriptive prose as I'm always looking for the happenings and events, but this one somehow caught me up. If you would like a book to slow you down, to linger and remember what life was like before instant media and consumerism, then you will be blessed in reading 'The Visitors'.

Caroline Scot has written another great novel about the Great War and it's effects on both soldiers and civilians. The main characters are Esme, a war widow, and Rory, an ex-soldier who lives with some of his surviving companions in what is effectively a commune in Zennor, Cornwall. Gilbert, the man funding the commune, is the former senior officer of the male residents and Esme works for his sister Fenella. The story centres around a visit by Fenella and Esme to Zennor in the summer of 1923.

The characters are complex and secretive, mainly due to their wartime experiences, and much of the drama is the result of these secrets gradually coming to light and being shared. This is a really good book and is highly recommended.

Thanks to Net Galley and the publishers for the opportunity to review this book.

I want to be friend every single member of that household,from the grumpy ones,right through to the quiet ones.
Each of them stole the tiniest bit of my heart in this book.
The story is broken up between and idyllic summer home,nature observations,and sections about the war.
All done so very well.
I wondered to begin with if I could enjoy this as much as the last book.
I believe I like it more.

This book looks at a group of people whose lives have been changed after WWI. It explores themes around loss, PTSD and how someone might go about living again after their life has been shattered. I thought it was beautifully done and thoroughly enjoyed it

The story
The First World War is over. Esme married Alec before the war. They met when she worked at a museum in Yorkshire and he, a journalist previously from Cornwall visited. Within a short time they were married. Both Esme’s and Alec’s parents had died and they have no siblings. When she has to give up her job on getting married, she stays home and plants a garden. When Alec died, she gave up the house and moves in to take care of the garden of a large house. The owner has also lost her husband. When the original gardener returns from war, Esme takes up the housekeeper position. The war has been over for years but Esme still grieves for Alec. Then her employer arranged for them to spend the summer with her brother at his house in Cornwall. It’s an opportunity for Esme to see where Alec grew up and feel closer to him. Gilbert’s home is occupied by a band of soldiers that fought with him in the war. They now have a type of retreat, each pursuing their art while battling their personal demons.

My thoughts
This story is poignant, emotional and spends much time trying to deal with the PTSD each of the house residents is experiencing. There are beautiful excerpts of the book that one, Rory, has written of his war experience. There are also beautifully written newspaper articles that Esme writes for the nature column back home in Yorkshire. I loved the references to the different birds that connect the points in time. There is a migration in the story from long term grief, that slowly rises and lifts as love and moving on blends into the story. Beautiful words placed with gentle eloquence ❤️

In the summer of 1923, Esme Nichols is going to Cornwall, the place her late husband grew up. Killed during the Great War, she hopes the trip will bring her closer to the man she so loved. She’s staying with a group of former soldiers, now a loosely formed band of artists. At first, Esme believes that this break is all she needs, but a new arrival upsets the balance of the colony and jeopardizes not only Esme’s memories of her past, but her future as well. Scott does a wonderful job of capturing the brief, hopeful years between the wars

Cornwall is one of my favourite places on earth and historical fiction is one of my favourite genres, so I was thrilled when Netgalley and Simon and Schuster UK gave me the opportunity to review a digital ARC of The Visitors by Caroline Scott.

This book is set in the years following WWII when everyone is trying to come to terms with the terrible toll taken by the preceding years. Young widow Esme Nicholls is sent by her employer to Cornwall, where she finds herself staying with a community of former soldiers, who may have survived the war but have been left with scars both visible and invisible. Although she is ostensibly in Cornwall to work, she also wants to learn more about her husband’s childhood, hoping that she will eventually be able to come to terms with his death.

Having spent many summers in Cornwall, I loved how Scott brought this beautiful part of the British countryside to life. She evoked Cornwall in all its many moods: the glittering blue sea of a hot summer’s day, the wildness of the storms. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to visit Cornwall this summer but reading this book I was able to imagine I was there, just for a little while!

I was able to guess the twist but I think Scott provided plenty of clues; the important thing was to follow the characters' emotional journeys as they all slowly processed the ways in which the war had impacted their lives: the deaths of comrades, the breakdown of marriages or even the sudden end to private hopes and dreams. I think this book has an important message about the long-lasting damage inflicted by war: it isn’t something that people can get over in a matter of weeks or months. Often authors provide a magical fix for their character’s emotional wounds but Scott really highlights that there is no ‘easy fix’, but that kindness, love and the support of friends allows healing to begin.