Review: "The Forgotten Garden" by Kate Morton
Review: "The Forgotten Garden" by Kate Morton
May contain mild spoilers (~ on the level of the back cover blurb).
But first, the approximate blurb from its' translation to Russian:
On the eve of the 1st World War, a little girl is found abandoned on a ship to Australia. A mysterious woman called the Authoress had promised to look after her - but the Authoress has disappeared without a trace.
On the night of her 21st birthday, Nell O'Connor learns a secret that will change her life forever. Decades later, she decides to discover the mystery of her heritage. But the crux of it all eludes her.
On Nell's death, her grand-daughter, Cassandra, comes into an unexpected inheritance. Cliff Cottage and its forgotten garden hold many secrets, which Cassandra will have to unveil in her search for the truth.
I decided to review the novel after realizing all 3 main protagonists were female, which is rare, and especially enjoying the portrayal of friendship dynamics between two of them. Imo, romance hardly plays a significant role and most of the book deals with topics like the search for identity, coming of age stories and parent/relative-child & sibling relationships. During the read, "The Forgotten Garden" brought to my mind Burnett's "The Secret Garden" and gothic novels of the past. Later I learned from the interview that "The Secret Garden" was indeed among Morton's childhood favorites ("However, it wasn't my intention to reference "The Secret Garden" when I first started writing") and that she was "eager to play with 19th-century gothic conventions". The references to Burnett's book only add to the novel. Morton's garden is not only a place of rebirth, but holds something much more sinister than Burnett's.
Kate Morton's book won't reach the classic status of "The Secret Garden", yet I found the novel quite original, easy to read and well-written (at least, better than average). My only complaint stems from my inability to follow 3 stories in parallel, as they're developed in the book. Thus I read them subsequently and the reading experience was partly spoiled. Don't do it in this book!
Hope you enjoy it and share your thoughts. You can check the beginning on Amazon to get a taste of Morton's style. For the end I want to share the beautiful Russian cover of the book I read:
