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3.7 AVERAGE
3.7 AVERAGE
A modern-day historian stumbles across an old photograph that compels her to investigate the woman in the picture. A little girl travels from India to England to start boarding school. A ghostly spirit follows a mysterious man around her home. A man grieves the loss of his brother. A mother and her children flee to the countryside seeking refuge from the aerial bombings in WWII-era London. A group of Victorian painters gather to paint and find inspiration with their muses and models. At almost 500 pages, Morton’s latest tome contains many, many stories all woven together. I have enjoyed all of her books up until this point, but The Clockmaker’s Daughter really fell short.
The pace was slow. Some storylines seemed irrelevant. Most of the characters were one-dimensional. A lot of the plot was unresolved by the end. The book felt rambling and uncompelling. This is an author who has hit it out of the park with back-to-back bestsellers, and this was just such a disappointment from an otherwise talented author. While I would gladly recommend her other books, I’m afraid this one wholly missed the mark.
The pace was slow. Some storylines seemed irrelevant. Most of the characters were one-dimensional. A lot of the plot was unresolved by the end. The book felt rambling and uncompelling. This is an author who has hit it out of the park with back-to-back bestsellers, and this was just such a disappointment from an otherwise talented author. While I would gladly recommend her other books, I’m afraid this one wholly missed the mark.
I enjoyed this book, but...
There were so many characters to keep track of and not much fluidity between the story lines. It also felt like so many plot lines were left dangling. Maybe they pick up in another book?!? That said I did enjoy the book over all and like stories that weave bits of the past and present together.
There were so many characters to keep track of and not much fluidity between the story lines. It also felt like so many plot lines were left dangling. Maybe they pick up in another book?!? That said I did enjoy the book over all and like stories that weave bits of the past and present together.
I’m not sure how she wove all that together so seamlessly but she did. Great story.
I go back and forth between 2 and 3 stars. I love Kate Morton but I really didn’t like this book. I felt like she tried to pack way too many themes, characters, and points of view into one story and it just didn’t work for me.
I have to say, historical fiction isn’t usually my genre of choice. This was my October Book of the Month selection, and I thought, you know, I’ll give it a shot. I loved this book. It was unlike anything that I have read before, and it was such a good read.
I loved this book! A little slow to start but that’s all part of the magic. Kate really spends the time in the beginning building the characters and the mood. Multiple flashbacks back and forth in time between the characters slowly begins weaving their stories together. As I got further into the book I couldn’t put the book down as the different storylines came together to unravel mysterious buried in history and unique storylines of people that never even knew each other but had become tied together by events throughout history. I adore the way Kate brings her books different storylines together in the end seamlessly but also with surprises and twists you don’t anticipate.
It was quite the convoluted tale and, although I could see how each piece fits together like the gears in a clock, it lost the thread of time in all it's back and forths and ins and outs. And the ending was anticlimactic, a bit disappointing as I'd held out in hopes of more.
Interesting story but it took too long to unfold for me. 3.5 stars.