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3.7 AVERAGE
3.7 AVERAGE
The last Kate Morton book I read (the Distant Hours) was so hard to get thru. Too many points of view on one event.
The Clockmaker's Daughter also had this same thing--one event and setting and several points of view (often seemingly unconnected) but instead of getting bogged down and underwhelmed/overwhelmed, I flew thru the pages of this book!
I love the whole young-rich-artist-living-whenever-and-wherever, the London pickpocket scene and the spookiness of the whole book. I felt like every character, every season added brilliantly to the mystery and story.
A lovely, satisfying read.
The Clockmaker's Daughter also had this same thing--one event and setting and several points of view (often seemingly unconnected) but instead of getting bogged down and underwhelmed/overwhelmed, I flew thru the pages of this book!
I love the whole young-rich-artist-living-whenever-and-wherever, the London pickpocket scene and the spookiness of the whole book. I felt like every character, every season added brilliantly to the mystery and story.
A lovely, satisfying read.
Really enjoyed. Story goes between past and present. One part of the story is told from the point of view of a ghost.
A beautifully written story by an author who is a master at including houses as central characters in her stories. The only reason I did not give it five stars is that I had a bit of trouble jumping generations and keeping the relationships straight. A “tree” of all the people involved would have helped.
Nonetheless, the story is beautiful, mysterious and captivating.
Nonetheless, the story is beautiful, mysterious and captivating.
A detailed account filled with, mostly, interesting characters that portray absolutely nothing. Just a bunch of gits faffing around finding something to do... I think they're called Victorians or something, and it's supposed to be 'beautiful' and 'true.' Someone dies a long time ago, and somehow this modern day girl tries to piece it together because...plot, I guess?
Anyway, the author pretty much sums it up in her notes saying something about trying to tell a coherent story with a disjointed timeline. But I think she messed up, because I'm pretty sure it's more accurate to say she told a disjointed story with a coherent timeline.
Lastly, I pretty much gritted my way through this so maybe I just didn't care enough to really understand all that truth and beauty.
Anyway, the author pretty much sums it up in her notes saying something about trying to tell a coherent story with a disjointed timeline. But I think she messed up, because I'm pretty sure it's more accurate to say she told a disjointed story with a coherent timeline.
Lastly, I pretty much gritted my way through this so maybe I just didn't care enough to really understand all that truth and beauty.
Good page turner. I felt that there were some loose ends and that the ending didn't tie together quite as nicely as I had hoped.
Magical, enchanting, page turner, full of love and mystery. Every I've come to expect from Kate Morton and so much more!
I really like Kate Morton's style (from the two books I've completed thus far), interweaving multiple generations and timelines, connecting everyone by the end. But if you don't pay attention at the start, you may get very confused! Started this before I finished for the semester so it was a slow start and then I was confused. Once I got myself back on track it was another great story of drama, suspense, mystery, and the human heart.
This book had the same hallmarks of all the books I've enjoyed in the past - each chapter alternating both who the narrators are and when their story takes place. We're first introduced to Elodie, who comes across a mysterious picture in a satchel in the present day, and then we're abruptly introduced to a ghost, who we later learn is important to the story, who narrates both in the present and the past, and then there's the revolving door of narrators in the past, some of whom we see time and time again, while others only appear for 20 pages, never to be seen again.
And so while this book had all the hallmarks of books I've enjoyed, I did not enjoy this book at all. Elodie appears primarily at the beginning of the book, and then only at the very end. It was unclear to me why the author included her story at all in the novel - except as a set up to the other two narrations - especially when her story had many gaps in it. For example, throughout Elodie's story, Morton hints at a tension between Elodie and her fiancee, Alastair, but it's left at just that. There's no explanation or resolution to this conflict, and the reader (me) was left wondering why it was included at all.
The ghost's portions of the book confused me, partially because the transitions between the ghost and the other narrators were incredibly abrupt. In books that alternate narrators, often what makes them so interesting to read is that the transition between the narrators' stories is smooth - one event ends in one narrator's story, only to have a related event begin in the other story. This book was not like that. We wouldn't be done with an event in Elodie's story, before the ghost would jump in. And trying to switch from a human narrator to a ghost (who makes it very clear that she can just observe all and will go up to people and blow in their ears to make them do things) was, for lack of a better word, weird.
The only redeeming quality of this book, in my opinion came with specifically Birdie & Lucy's - two women in the past - stories. For those two recurring narrators, Morton did a fantastic job with the way she described their lives - the detail given to the characters, their interactions, and their emotions were incredible and vivid, and I found myself glued to those parts of the stories (only to be rudely interrupted when the book switched back to the perspective of a ghost).
Overall, the expressive, colorful stories of Birdie & Lucy's pasts weren't enough to save this book. I only finished it because I needed to know what happened to the main characters.
And so while this book had all the hallmarks of books I've enjoyed, I did not enjoy this book at all. Elodie appears primarily at the beginning of the book, and then only at the very end. It was unclear to me why the author included her story at all in the novel - except as a set up to the other two narrations - especially when her story had many gaps in it. For example, throughout Elodie's story, Morton hints at a tension between Elodie and her fiancee, Alastair, but it's left at just that. There's no explanation or resolution to this conflict, and the reader (me) was left wondering why it was included at all.
The ghost's portions of the book confused me, partially because the transitions between the ghost and the other narrators were incredibly abrupt. In books that alternate narrators, often what makes them so interesting to read is that the transition between the narrators' stories is smooth - one event ends in one narrator's story, only to have a related event begin in the other story. This book was not like that. We wouldn't be done with an event in Elodie's story, before the ghost would jump in. And trying to switch from a human narrator to a ghost (who makes it very clear that she can just observe all and will go up to people and blow in their ears to make them do things) was, for lack of a better word, weird.
The only redeeming quality of this book, in my opinion came with specifically Birdie & Lucy's - two women in the past - stories. For those two recurring narrators, Morton did a fantastic job with the way she described their lives - the detail given to the characters, their interactions, and their emotions were incredible and vivid, and I found myself glued to those parts of the stories (only to be rudely interrupted when the book switched back to the perspective of a ghost).
Overall, the expressive, colorful stories of Birdie & Lucy's pasts weren't enough to save this book. I only finished it because I needed to know what happened to the main characters.