The Forgotten Garden
Ratings70
Average rating3.8
Not exactly a retelling of Francis Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden, but a nod to it. A nice, romantic, page turning tale of a foundling's search for the true story of her origins.
This book was recommended to me by my mum who kept going on about how it was the best book she had ever read so I decided I'd give it a go after reading through the first chapter of The House At Riverton in a book shop and deciding I liked the authors style of writing.
I absolutely loved the way that the book interweaved the different characters throughout the novel and didn't find it too difficult to get to grips with different chapters being set in different time frames, if anything I found the variety nice and it kept the book moving along building the story beautifully to it's conclusion.
Throughout this book I kept trying to second guess what the authors intended plot was going to be, she continually surprised me and moved the goalposts and I thoroughly enjoyed the way she weaved all the characters together.
This books keeps you riveted from the first page to the last. It was so hard to put down and walk away!!
Nell has the bottom of her world knocked out when she discovers that her family isn't really hers. She embarks on a lifelong mission of finding out who she is and where she comes from. All she has for clues is a small suitcase and very vague memories of being on a ship, and someone telling her she had to hide and not move. But of course things do not always turn out as we hope, and so the mystery passes to Nell's granddaughter Cassandra. Cassandra at first is leery of the mystery that has been left to her, and yet, intrigued at the same time. She begins to follow the trail that her grandmother had made, and makes some shocking discoveries of her own. Who was the authoress and how does she figure into the story? Where does the English manor come into play, and what tragedies are waiting behind the brambles in the garden to be discovered?
I really enjoyed this book. I grabbed it for our book club read this month, and was not disappointed with the book at all. Kate Morton has weaved a tale that leaves readers begging for more.
Listened to this one in the car and really enjoyed it. Reader was excellent. Story is looooooong. I agree with the other reviewers that some of the premise laid out for ‘why we're all gathered here today' was a tad contrived, but the story telling is excellent. So if you can suspend some of the disbelief in the beginning, plow through some of the bits that don't really do anything to move the story forward (all very well written - so it's fine), and stop eyerolling towards the end when you want to beat Cassandra over the head with the book because she's so dense and can't seem to get the ‘mystery' figured out.
And I'm firmly in the camp that Linus is a ‘funny uncle' as they say - and I'll happily take the book's allusion to that fact rather than have the gory details spelled out word for word. If you go with that premise: Georgiana and Eliza's strong desire to leave Blackhurst makes a little more sense - as well as Eliza's very strong desire to remove Ivory from the estate.
The Forgotten Garden was so amazing, so refreshing. The characters had so much life. The story switched back and forth between time periods but was not difficult to follow at all. It was a steady unfolding of hinting of events and then revealing the whole story. It captured my attention for the entire book. There were never any times where the book was lagging or where I wished it would hurry and get to the point - which happens all to often. Kate Morton even includes some of the fairy tales that are in the book that the Forgotten Garden is centered around, and they were incredible. There is so much symbolism in this book that really makes you think. This book is so rich in detail. I believe I could read it several more times and keep discovering small nuances. Kate Morton is now, without a doubt one, of my favorite writers. Her style mimics a classic but keeps you entertained. She adds suspense little by little with perfection. I will definitely be reading more of her books. This is the book that I will be comparing historical family secrets fiction to for years to come.
I liked this book but I always have a hard time with cross-generation books. I guess I am just not smart enough to keep track of everyone. I thought the story was interesting and I really liked the end.
Barf! Is Kate Morton 12? Because the entire book is a poorly conceived story about several generations of brainless, but beautiful (because that's more important), women. Characters have names like “The Authoress” or “the little girl” or “Swindle” or Cassandra. Speaking of, Cassandra has to be one of the most dim-witted characters around. How she didn't crack the “secret” of her Ancestress a lot earlier makes one numb by the time the huge “twist” is revealed.
There are red-headed orphans! Sadly, they aren't of remote interest like good old Anne of Green Gables. And twins! And the mention of things being twinned!
Wretched similes abound, such as the comparison of winding garden paths to the laces of an Irish dancer's shoe. Seriously? And the “allegorical” fairy tales beat one over the head until one wishes it would just end already. The pace just drags, drags, drags.
The only reason I got through the entire thing is because I have a long commute. The audiobook is decent, from a production perspective and from the narrator's perspective, but the content is drivel. If you really like this, go check out “Her Fearful Symmetry” by Audrey Niffenegger, which is awful in some similar ways.
I loved this novel. I couldn't put it down. Told from the perspectives of several different characters across three distant decades and two countries, it was a beautifully spun tale of long-lost family. In 1913, Nell was found alone on a ship to Australia at age 4, and a family takes her into their home as their own child. But who is her true family? And why has no one tried to find her? The father that raised her finally admits on her 18th birthday that she was not their own, and she spends the rest of her life trying to uncover the tangled truth about her origins. Nell purchases a cliff-side cottage and its walled-in “magical garden,” where she is convinced she used to play as a child, but circumstances prevent her from a permanent move, and she dies before she can uncover all the cottage's secrets. Her granddaughter Cassandra is willed the house, and sets off to find out who her ancestors are once and for all.
I found this to be a good story, and well paced. It was a tad slow to start with, but once you get into the meat of the mystery it sinks it's claws in and doesn't let go. Jumping between times and places worked well with it, letting us see the various plot lines unfold in tandem.
My one irk was that I'd pretty well unraveled what had happened halfway through. The book does a good job of throwing you off the trail, and making you think you're wrong, but in the end this felt somewhat forced. I wish there had been a better way to conceal the final solution, but I can't think how the author could have done it.
Overall, a brilliant and enjoyable story that's well worth a read!
The Forgotten Garden was a great book. Surely the longest one I've read in a very long time, but totally worth it. The plot was well and intricately woven; the author's use of multiple story lines running along at the same time actually worked really well. One thing I really enjoyed was how the garden of the book's title was neatly tied to Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden...I mean, she actually became a character in this book, and even though her appearance was brief, it was an interesting idea to include her and make the Forgotten Garden of Blackhurst Estate the inspiration for Burnett's own children's book.
