SOURCE: Review of Rose Cottage, in Kirkus Reviews, Vol. LXV, No. 16, August 15, 1997, p. 1255.

In the following review, the critic assesses Rose Cottage as familiar Stewart material—"mild doings in enchanting surroundings."

For the frazzled Anglophile, the countryside-enamored reader, here's a bit of romance, light mystery, and the reassuring stability of a timeless English village—in short, another Stewart comforter.

Here, [in Rose Cottage], a young widow returns in 1947 to her childhood home and the enigma of her parentage. Kate Herrick, née Welland, who lost her husband in the war, is summoned to Scotland by her beloved grandmother, formerly a cook in the household of Sir James Brandon. She asks Kate to return to their native village in the north of England, where Kate was raised by Gran and severe Aunt Betsy. Kate's mother Lilias, who'd become pregnant while serving at the Brandons' estate, had left Kate at...