I'm a Kate Morton fan. That said, she does have a formula -- two timelines about 50-70 years apart, where someone from the current time is trying to piece together what happened in the past. An elderly person usually provides key information that brings the pieces together. So, I wait a while between her books...and am always glad to get back to her stories.

This novel provides a good story; one that kept me guessing. The end tied things up without resulting in too many coincidences. As always, Ms. Morton's characters were well developed and her writing just lovely.

Next up...in a while, The Distant Hours. ( )

Historical Fiction

Ebook- Kind of a fairy tale as revealed by the granddaughter of Nell. Nell learned that was not the birth daughter of the family she learned to call her own when she was 18. This so troubled her that she shunned her family and was haunted by how she became to be an orphan. The story follows her search for her past and how her granddaughter picked up on that search after Nell?s death. An enjoyable read. Kirkus: A four-year-old girl abandoned aboard a ship touches off a century-long inquiry into her ancestry, in Morton?s weighty, at times unwieldy, second novel (The House at Riverton, 2008).In 1913, Hugh, portmaster of Maryborough, Australia, discovers a child alone on a vessel newly arrived from England. The little girl cannot recall her name and has no identification, only a white suitcase containing some clothes and a book of fairy tales by Eliza Makepeace. Hugh and his wife, childless after several miscarriages, name the girl Nell and raise her as their own. At 21, she is engaged to be married and has no idea she is not their biological daughter. When Hugh confesses the truth, Nell?s equilibrium is destroyed, but life and World War II intervene, and she doesn?t explore her true origins until 1975, when she journeys to London. There she learns of Eliza?s sickly cousin Rose, daughter of Lord Linus Mountrachet and his lowborn, tightly wound wife, Lady Adeline. Mountrachet?s beloved sister Georgiana disgraced the family by running off to London to live in squalor with a sailor, who then abruptly disappeared. Eliza was their daughter, reclaimed by Linus after Georgiana?s death and brought back to Blackhurst, the gloomy Mountrachet manor in Cornwall. Interviewing secretive locals at Blackhurst, now under renovation as a hotel, Nell traces her parentage to Rose and her husband, society portraitist Nathaniel Walker¥except that their only daughter died at age four. Nell?s quest is interrupted at this point, but after her death in 2005, her granddaughter Cassandra takes it up. Intricate, intersecting narratives, heavy-handed fairy-tale symbolism and a giant red herring suggesting possible incest create a thicket of clues as impenetrable and treacherous as Eliza?s overgrown garden and the twisty maze on the Mountrachet estate.Murky, but the puzzle is pleasing and the long-delayed ?reveal? is a genuine surprise.

I was impressed with the characters, plotting, settings, and descriptive writing. I really enjoyed how the author weaved fairy stories into the lives of the characters, and explored the idea that reality and stories can intertwine in our lives. This is definitely a book for readers to enjoy, especially if you every read fairy and folk tales as a child. ( )

This is an excellent book! The writer spans time and weaves the stories together seamlessly. ( )