One to remember (The Forgotten Garden - Kate Morton)

Member Name: burtybookworm

Product:	The Forgotten Garden - Kate Morton
Date:	01/07/09 (90 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: an excellent, enthralling story with interesting characters

Disadvantages: none really

Plot....

1913 - Maryborough Wharf, Australia
====
A four year old girl is discovered abandoned after a voyage from England. She doesn't know her name or remember anything from her journey, only that a woman she calls the Authoress was supposed to look after her - but the authoress is no where to be seen.

1975 - Cornwall, England
====
The four year old girl is now an old lady and determined to find out what happened to her all those years ago. She decides to travel from Brisbane to Cornwall to discover her real family in an estate called Blackhurst Manor owned by the Mountrachet family.

2005 - Brisbane, Australia & Cornwall, England
====
Nell has passed away but her mystery lives on as her only granddaughter, Cassandra receives a surprise inheritance in the form of mystery of Nell's abandonment at the Wharf in Australia all those years ago. Cassandra's hunt also leads her to the Mountrachet family in Cornwall, but its to a long ago abandoned cottage and its forgotten garden. Will Cassandra uncover the truth about Nell's life that Nell couldn't quite uncover in her lifetime?

Review...

Although I thoroughly enjoyed "The House At Riverton", I didn't think I'd really enjoy any other books by the author Kate Morton, so imagine my surprise when I started reading this one! Not only did I enjoy it, but I found it a better read!

As I mentioned in my review of "The House of Riverton", the main difficulty of this book was how slow I found it to get into the book. Thankfully, in this one, I was immediately drawn in to the story and it was instantly intriguing. Like the summary suggests, the story is told from different times and in different countries, and during this, it is also told from different points of view. In 1913 and before, a lot of the story is told from the point of view of Eliza Makepeace, or as she is known to the little abandoned girl, "The Authoress". I found this a particularly fascinating part of the book, as I enjoyed the descriptions and peek at life in London slums during the 19th Century. This part of the book conjured up lots of really vivid images and created a fascinating background for Eliza to grow up in. Not only this, Eliza's story was sad and heart warming, and I thought that her character was well drawn.

In fact, all of the characters were well drawn. In providing different time lines and different characters perspectives, Morton stops this book from ever being described as boring or slow going. I loved the constant change of pace that occurred due to this, but not only that, the stories of all the characters interlinked. The story from Cornwall before 1913 is sometimes followed by the more modern story of Cassandra, Nell's granddaughter in 2005. Even though the two women are many years apart, Cassandra's search for the truth in travelling to Cornwall all links in with Eliza's story, and it was often the case that something Cassandra found out in 2005 directly linked up to something that was explained in say, 1910 told from Eliza's point of view. The same happened when some of the chapters focussed on Nell's search in 1976. Looking back on it, I think Nell's story in 1976 didn't appear as frequently as Cassandra's or Eliza's but it didn't diminish the importance of her search. Obviously, Nell is the central character to the whole story; she is the little girl who was left abandoned on the Wharf in Australia in 1913 and she is the woman desperately trying to piece together the puzzle of her past. The whole flow between sections felt seamless, well paced and extremely absorbing.

Nell as a character was an interesting one. For the most part, the readers perception of Nell is taken from her granddaughter Cassandra's view of her. Although Cassandra clearly loved and adores her grandmother, she is not closed off to Nell's many faults; she is a stubborn and moody old woman, someone who as deliberately cut herself off from human contact and who would happily live with her own company. Despite her obvious flaws, Nell is a character that I warmed to immediately, I empathised with her idea of her own identity being completely changed, and I (probably for sentimental reasons of the nan-granddaughter relationship that I had with my nan) just loved the quiet all-encompassing love that Cassandra and Nell had for each other. There was nothing showy in the way in which their relationship was described, it was so subtle and well written that it was just very apparent that the women were extremely close.

The mystery itself presented a much more intriguing prospect than The House At Riverton. Although I enjoyed the previous book, the mystery wasn't really one that gripped you from the start and made you read hungrily to the end. It was more of a slow unravelling. In the same way, this story was a slow unravelling of the truth behind Nell's abandonment, but the facts that presented themselves were much more compelling. In this book, there are more background characters to take in to consideration when working out the truth and the general idea of Nell's abandonment was just more juicy a mystery than the one in the last book. However, in the same way that it becomes easy to guess the outcome of the women in "The House AT Riverton", this books secrets are also apparent before the actual facts are spilled, although I lost none of the enjoyment because of it.

Overall, this is an excellent follow up to "The House At Riverton." Suffice to say, if you enjoy the authors style of writing and you enjoyed the themes that were explored within the Riverton book, I'd say it would be a safe bet that you would be blown away by this one. It certainly surpassed my expectations, combining the intertwining aspects of family life through the ages with well drawn characters and an old fashioned mystery. Superb.

Summary: An even better follow up to a successful debut