Review : The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton

Title : The Forgotten Garden
Author: Kate Morton

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars


About the book:

On the eve of the first world war, a little girl is found abandoned on a ship to Australia. A mysterious woman called the Authoress had promised to look after her – but the Authoress has disappeared without a trace.

A terrible secret…

On the night of her twenty-first birthday, Nell O’Connor learns a secret that will change her life forever. Decades later, she embarks upon a search for the truth that leads her to the windswept Cornish coast and the strange and beautiful Blackhurst Manor, once owned by the aristocratic Mountrachet family.

A mysterious inheritance…

On Nell’s death, her grand-daughter, Cassandra, comes into an unexpected inheritance. Cliff Cottage and its forgotten garden are notorious amongst the Cornish locals for the secrets they hold – secrets about the doomed Mountrachet family and their ward Eliza Makepeace, a writer of dark Victorian fairytales. It is here that Cassandra will finally uncover the truth about the family, and solve the century-old mystery of a little girl lost.


My Review:

This is a story of three generations jumping between differernt time  periods.The author Kate Morton has written about their stories parellely hopping from one era to another.

It starts with a little girl of age 4 who is left stranded alone on a ship which sails from one continent to another.She has been promised by the lady which she calls 'Authoress' will take care of her.But when the ship sails and reaches to another continent, she finds herself lost and alone on the ship.When a kind man named Hugh sees her all by herself, he and his wife adopts her and names her Nell.This secret is never been told to her.But, 21 years later , her father confesses the truth to her.He also tells her that she was carrying only a little suitcase in which there was a book of Fairy Tales written by Eliza Makepiece along with some other contents in it.After learning the truth that the father and mother she always considered as her own were never hers, she feels completely devastated and lost.And then, off she goes to discover and find her own identity to some other country in some other continent.
Years later,Nells granddaughter Cassandra is been left a cottage somewhere in Europe as her only inheritance by Nell.To know about the mysterious cottage on a cliff, Cassandra too leaves in search of her own lost heritage finally to find out about Nell's past : Rose and Eliza.

I loved this book.The way the author has written the story about three  generations parallelly is commendable ! The story keeps on jumping from one time period to another.I found the writing style very very intelligent.It is very difficult to write about three generations,  unravelling the truth and mysteries behind and finally piecing up everything together.It is surely one of the very few huge books which I  read quickly and wished that it would never end.'The Forgotten Garden'  took me to an entirely different place, and into different eras.

I loved reading about Eliza the most.And mainly, I loved Eliza !!All  the characters of this book are fleshed out wonderfully.The settings and the scenes in this book are very clearly written as well.Kate  Morton is a fantastic story teller.

Now.I would not recommend this book to readers who like only fast paced books.It needs time and patience to start with! I couldn't put the book down once I caught whats happening in it.It became a page turner to me and I wanted to read more and more of it!

Oh..did I tell you that there are fairy tales in it ??!!