The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton

Publisher: Washing Square Press
Publish Date: February 16, 2010
Pages: 560
Format: Trade Paperback
ISBN: 978-1416550556

Cassandra is lost, alone and grieving. Her much loved grandmother, Nell, has just died and Cassandra, her life already shaken by a tragic accident ten years ago, feels like she has lost everything dear to her. Cassandra learns that Nell wasn't who she thought she was. It turns out that Nell had been raised by a couple who found her on the dock after she had been abandoned on the boat that had carried her from England to Australia at the age of four. Nell had attempted to research her own heritage, but the sudden appearance of Cassandra in her life prevented her from putting all the pieces together. Cassandra takes it upon herself to solve the mystery for her grandmother once and for all. The story weaves back and forth between three generations -- Cassandra in 2005, Nell in 1975, and the two women who are the key to the puzzle in the early years of the twentieth century. 

My Thoughts

It’s narrated by three women in three different times - all three eras are linked by the same family secret that has been hidden for over a century. In present day Australia, Cassandra’s grandmother, Nell, dies and bequeaths her a crumbling old house in Cornwall, England. Intrigued, Cassandra travels to Cornwall, and finding a long forgotten garden in the grounds of the abandoned house, beings to unravel her family’s hundred year old secret. In Victorian England, spirited Eliza flees her from her wealthy but controlling family, never to be seen again. And in the early 1900s, a very young Nell arrives alone in Australia carrying just two items: a little white suitcase and a book of fairy tales written by a mysterious author.

Layer after layer, and in alternating chapters, Cassandra, Eliza and Nell tell their tale of love, loss, sacrifice and hope, weaving their individual stories together to make a poignant whole. Although part of the secret is guessable, the finer details are held back right until the end, and when it all comes together, you get a real sense of completion, a fairy tale within a fairy tale (that'll make sense if you read it), a story that stays with you long after the final page has been read.

My Rating: «««««

Buy it Now!

The reviews made here are my personal opinion. I’m not being paid to review any of these books. I am by no means a professional book reviewer or editor.  I do this for the love of books.