Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #32 in Books
• Published on: 2007-06-15
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Review
A charming mixture of love and mystery. --Lancashire Evening Post

Judy Finnigan, Richard and Judy, Channel 4
'It's a corker...probably my favourite of all the Summer Reads'

Richard Madeley, Richard and Judy, Channel 4
'It's one of the best pieces of writing on the First World War
that I've ever read...I can't think of a bad thing to say about this book'

Customer Reviews

Not Great Literature but....
This is not great literature but it was a really good holiday read with a strong ending which did not leave you feeling let down. It is a combination of "Upstairs Downstairs" mixed with elements of "The Go-Between" and with a splash of "Brideshead Revisited". Well worth a read.

Stunning Debut
This book owes a great debt (duly noted in the acknowledgments) to Upstairs, Downstairs, Remains of the Day, Gosford Park, The Blind Assassin and anything by DuMaurier, and I think that Kate Morton does her literary and cinematic ancestors proud.

The story is cunningly written, and though I often gripe about being able to spot plot points in advance, I did not see what would happen ahead of time. This was a refreshing change. There was only one instance where I knew a plot point before the protagonist did, but it was tangential to the main storyline, and the clues laid out before us were meant to lead us in that direction, so I don't consider that a flaw.

These are the kinds of sprawling, layered novels that I love most. Someone looking back over her life reveals a lifetime worth of secrets and reading the novel is like peeling an onion. I tried to ration out my reading of it, because I knew I would never want it to end, but finally I had to give in to my desire to see what would happen next and how all the ends would tie together.

Fascinating reading - on the basis of this book I already have The Forgotten Garden on my wish list.

predictable but very well written
Another story of upstairs downstairs and the ties between classes in times gone by. Well written both in terms of the story and its structure which is unusual with popular fiction now! Only a couple of Americanisms gave away the author's nationality. An enjoyable read, not too much concentration needed, bit predictable, but kept its pace.