Sanibel
Kate Morton’s Homecoming is a sweeping, multi-generational mystery that masterfully intertwines past and present. Set between Australia in 1959 and contemporary London, the novel follows journalist Jess Turner-Bridges as she returns home to Sydney after her grandmother, Nora, suffers a serious fall. As Jess digs into her family’s past, she stumbles upon the long-buried mystery of the Turner family tragedy—an event that left an entire family dead in mysterious circumstances on Christmas Eve decades earlier.
I loved this book as I have all of Morton’s works. I love generational mysteries because they reflect how history isn’t just facts and events—it’s memory, perception, and emotion, all tangled together. The past doesn’t exist in a neat, objective way; it is told and retold, reshaped by those who remember it, softened or distorted by time, guilt, or love. Every family has its own mythology, stories passed down that are more than truth or lies—they are something in between. Morton understands this deeply, and Homecoming explores how the stories we inherit shape us just as much as the truth we may never fully uncover.
What sets Morton apart is how well she writes people and their relationships. She captures the unspoken tensions, the quiet resentments, the fierce, complicated love that binds families together even as it pulls them apart. Her characters feel lived-in, as if they have histories beyond the pages of the novel. Jess’s relationship with her grandmother, Nora, is particularly poignant, highlighting the ways in which love is expressed—or withheld—across generations. The novel explores how misunderstandings, regrets, and long-buried secrets shape these relationships, making them feel achingly real.
Morton’s prose is lyrical, almost hypnotic, making the story feel dreamlike, as if the past is just beneath the surface, waiting to break through. Her settings are immersive, and the Australian landscape in Homecoming is as much a character as any person in the novel—lush, wild, beautiful, and haunted by history.
The story is like an archaeological dig site—each discovery leads to another, revealing and peeling back another hidden layer of the past that was long thought to be buried forever, drawing the reader deeper into its mysteries. With every chapter, another piece is carefully unearthed, slowly assembling a picture that is both more complex and more haunting than it first appeared. Homecoming leans more into slow-burn family drama than fast-paced thriller, but if you love stories that feel like long-buried secrets finally coming to light, this is a book to savor.
Kate Morton’s Homecoming is a sweeping, multi-generational mystery that masterfully intertwines past and present. Set between Australia in 1959 and contemporary London, the novel follows journalist Jess Turner-Bridges as she returns home to Sydney after her grandmother, Nora, suffers a serious fall. As Jess digs into her family’s past, she stumbles upon the long-buried mystery of the Turner family tragedy—an event that left an entire family dead in mysterious circumstances on Christmas Eve decades earlier.
I loved this book as I have all of Morton’s works. I love generational mysteries because they reflect how history isn’t just facts and events—it’s memory, perception, and emotion, all tangled together. The past doesn’t exist in a neat, objective way; it is told and retold, reshaped by those who remember it, softened or distorted by time, guilt, or love. Every family has its own mythology, stories passed down that are more than truth or lies—they are something in between. Morton understands this deeply, and Homecoming explores how the stories we inherit shape us just as much as the truth we may never fully uncover.
What sets Morton apart is how well she writes people and their relationships. She captures the unspoken tensions, the quiet resentments, the fierce, complicated love that binds families together even as it pulls them apart. Her characters feel lived-in, as if they have histories beyond the pages of the novel. Jess’s relationship with her grandmother, Nora, is particularly poignant, highlighting the ways in which love is expressed—or withheld—across generations. The novel explores how misunderstandings, regrets, and long-buried secrets shape these relationships, making them feel achingly real.
Morton’s prose is lyrical, almost hypnotic, making the story feel dreamlike, as if the past is just beneath the surface, waiting to break through. Her settings are immersive, and the Australian landscape in Homecoming is as much a character as any person in the novel—lush, wild, beautiful, and haunted by history.
The story is like an archaeological dig site—each discovery leads to another, revealing and peeling back another hidden layer of the past that was long thought to be buried forever, drawing the reader deeper into its mysteries. With every chapter, another piece is carefully unearthed, slowly assembling a picture that is both more complex and more haunting than it first appeared. Homecoming leans more into slow-burn family drama than fast-paced thriller, but if you love stories that feel like long-buried secrets finally coming to light, this is a book to savor.