vickeyfoggin 's review for:

The Clockmaker's Daughter by Kate Morton

2.0

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I struggled with this. In the afterward the author says it's "a book about time and timelessness" and has a "focus on...the use of narrative structures to tell cohesive stories about the disjointed past" and thought: oh, so that's what she was trying to do. The story reads like 20 pounds of ideas in 5 pound sack and could have used another draft or two. It skips around in time too much to be really coherent and takes a very long time to come together. At about the 80% mark one of the narrators (a ghost) acknowledges this and says that the story will finally progress. This pacing choice makes the end seemed rushed and the resolutions of the various story arcs unsatisfying. There's a huge cast of characters, some of whom are irrelevant and add to the confusion. After reading and recommending The Forgotten Garden to my home library clients I thought I'd check out another one of her books but think this one will be too confusing for my elderly customers. Finally, I personally hated the section written from the point of view of a satchel that is happy to have items removed from its innards and to feel the light on its fancy stitching after being forgotten in a closet for decades!