The Forgotten Garden: A Novel
by Kate Morton
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Book Summary Information
Author: Kate MortonEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2009-04-07
ISBN: 1416550542
Number of pages: 560
Publisher: Atria
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9781416550549
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Book Reviews of The Forgotten Garden: A Novel
Book Review: A Cornish Tale
Summary: 4 Stars
Ordinarily I hate a book that lets me suss out the ending but Ms. Morton switches gears in so many directions & tosses in so many tangential twists that I can forgive her for using the most logical conclusion. What fun, as she adds another branch to her plot and hangs up another curious character so easily and naturally connected. Though I must say I still have a very hard time with a four year old left on a ship hiding behind barrels--even in 1913. Abandoned? Hardly. But why would you leave so young a child alone in the first place? At any rate, the story of each of the three generations of women captures your attention and makes it hard to put the book down.
All of Ms. Morton's characters are so easy to read: the harridan Mrs. Swindell, Rose's loving husband/artist, Lord Montrachet's hopelessly protracted search for his lost sister, and the well-meaning, if incompetent, Dr. Matthews. Even as you catch on to the machinations of Rose's evil mother, you can anticipate her next bit of nastiness. She does not disappoint, right to the very end.
I'm betting money that the connection to Frances Hodgson-Burnett was the germ that brought this tale to the light. Truly, it's the garden that holds the key, isn't it? I'm always a sucker for fairies and characters who believe in them. The Authoress, like many brought up in poverty, has that vivid imagination weaned on hunger and deprivation, which fairy stories require. Who's to blame her for thinking that at last, her fairy tale might come true. As Bloody Mary sang, "if you haven't got a dream, how you gonna have a dream come true".
So the end of Nell's tale and the solution to her appearance in Australia reaches it's conclusion as expected. She does indeed soften the conclusion in letting the garden tie the characters together. It's not the ending I wanted but I kept reading in the desperate hope that it might not be so. After all, I still believe in fairies.
Summary of The Forgotten Garden: A Novel
From the internationally bestselling author of The House at Riverton, an unforgettable new novel that transports the reader from the back alleys of poverty of pre-World War I London to the shores of colonial Australia where so many made a fresh start, and back to the windswept coast of Cornwall, England, past and present
A tiny girl is abandoned on a ship headed for Australia in 1913. She arrives completely alone with nothing but a small suitcase containing a few clothes and a single book -- a beautiful volume of fairy tales. She is taken in by the dockmaster and his wife and raised as their own. On her twenty-first birthday they tell her the truth, and with her sense of self shattered and with very little to go on, "Nell" sets out on a journey to England to try to trace her story, to fi nd her real identity. Her quest leads her to Blackhurst Manor on the Cornish coast and the secrets of the doomed Mountrachet family. But it is not until her granddaughter, Cassandra, takes up the search after Nell's death that all the pieces of the puzzle are assembled. At Cliff Cottage, on the grounds of Blackhurst Manor, Cassandra discovers the forgotten garden of the book's title and is able to unlock the secrets of the beautiful book of fairy tales.
This is a novel of outer and inner journeys and an homage to the power of storytelling. The Forgotten Garden is fi lled with unforgettable characters who weave their way through its spellbinding plot to astounding effect.
Morton's novels are #1 bestsellers in England and Australia and are published in more than twenty languages. Her fi rst novel, The House at Riverton, was a New York Times bestseller.
Amazon Best of the Month, April 2009: Like Frances Hodgson Burnett's beloved classic The Secret Garden, Kate Morton's The Forgotten Garden takes root in your imagination and grows into something enchanting--from a little girl with no memories left alone on a ship to Australia, to a fog-soaked London river bend where orphans comfort themselves with stories of Jack the Ripper, to a Cornish sea heaving against wind-whipped cliffs, crowned by an airless manor house where an overgrown hedge maze ends in the walled garden of a cottage left to rot. This hidden bit of earth revives barren hearts, while the mysterious Authoress's fairy tales (every bit as magical and sinister as Grimm's) whisper truths and ignite the imaginary lives of children. As Morton draws you through a thicket of secrets that spans generations, her story could cross into fairy tale territory if her characters weren't clothed in such complex flesh, their judgment blurred by the heady stench of emotions (envy, lust, pride, love) that furtively flourished in the glasshouse of Edwardian society. While most ache for a spotless mind's eternal sunshine, the Authoress meets the past as "a cruel mistress with whom we must all learn to dance," and her stories gift children with this vital muscle memory. --Mari Malcolm
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