The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton

Oh, The Forgotten Garden...SO GOOD!!!  Kate Morton is a superb writer.  This is my second jaunt with her novels and like the first one (The House at Riverton) this one doesn't disappoint.

The Forgotten Garden starts in 1913 in London with a small girl, 4 years old, playing a game of "hide-and-seek" on the deck of a ship.  She's told by the woman who left her there that she will return but to stay hidden until she does.  Unfortunately, the girl is still alone when the ship pulls away from the dock and arrives scared and alone in Australia several days later.  Thankfully, the dock master in Australia takes the child, names her Nell and he and his wife call her their own.  On her 21st birthday, her father finally tells her the truth about her past or what he knows of it.  Nell thus goes back to England to try and find from where she comes.  Unfortunately, Nell is never able to find her truth becuase she is forced to raise her young and abandoned granddaughter, Cassandra.  When Nell dies at a ripe old age, Cassandra picks the investigation up on her own to find the truth.  What follows for the reader is a journey back and forth between the past in 1913, the past in the mid-70s and present day.

This book was (high-pitched singing) AMAZING!!!  A MUST READ!!!  Loved it!  Couldn't put it down.  Such a sad but at the same time hopeful book!  READ IT!

The House At Riverton by Kate Morton

My most recent read gives an account of the breakdown of a well-known British family as seen through the eyes of one of its servants. At 14, Grace Reeves leaves home to work for her mother's former employers at Riverton House. She is the same age as Hannah, the stubborn middle child who visits her uncle, Lord Ashbury, at Riverton House with her sister Emmeline and bother David. Grace is somewhat obsessed and fascinated by the children and enjoys observing their comings and goings. Fast forward 80 years to when Grace is nearly 100. She is approached by a filmmaker working on a movie about the family and desires Grace to fact-check certain aspects of the story. The memories have Grace and thus the reader going back and forth between 1999 and post WWI. The story mainly revolves around sisters Hannah and Emmeline, who were present when a family friend, the young poet R.S. Hunter, allegedly committed suicide at Riverton. Grace suggests throughout the novel that no one knows the real story, and as she reports Hannah's schemes to have her own life and the curdling of younger Emmeline's jealousy, the truth about the poet's death is revealed.

This was a gripping novel that kept me enthralled and interested. I knew there would be a twist at the end and figured I had riddled it out. I was wrong, which, in my eyes means the novelist did her job in creating a thrilling mystery that delivered in the end. Read it - a great debut novel from Morton who I look forward to reading again.