The Forgotten Garden

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.

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.

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.