The House at Riverton
Ratings15
Average rating3.7
15
Ratings15
Average rating3.7
Originally published in 2007, Kate Morton's debut novel, The House at Riverton, became a bestselling sensation and won the Richard and Judy Best Read of the year. This special tenth anniversary edition of Kate Morton's acclaimed debut features a new foreword from the author. Summer 1924: On the eve of a glittering Society party, by the lake of a grand English country house, a young poet takes his life. The only witnesses, sisters Hannah and Emmeline Hartford, will never speak to each other again.Winter 1999: Grace Bradley, 98, one-time housemaid of Riverton Manor, is visited by a young director making a film about the poet's suicide. Ghosts awaken and memories, long-consigned to the dark reaches of Grace's mind, begin to sneak back through the cracks. A shocking secret threatens to emerge; something history has forgotten but Grace never could.
Reviews with the most likes.
I decided to buy this book after reading the magnificent ‘The Forgotten Garden' by the same author. I had missed all the hype when it was on the Richard & Judy book list.
I found this a really good read, I liked the way that it was created through a series of flashbacks experienced by Grace, a housekeeper in the House At Riverton in the 1920's, as she draws together her memoirs for her grandson, an author.
Telling the story of the family who lived in the House it talks throughout of the death of a famous poet at the house during a family party and makes clear from the start that the book will seek to answer the questions surrounding his death. And the book does this magnificently, if a little crammed into the last few chapters.
I found the book began to pad out nicely around the lives of the main characters and almost the death of the poet became a by-plot that the author felt compelled to finish rather than building the novel around this plot. I also feel that not enough attention was given to the paternity of Grace the Housemaid, a lot of build up is put into her finding out potentially whom her father is but this fails to be explored fully which was dissapointing.
