| Historical Fiction |
| Fiction |
Summary
Summary
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
From the author of the New York Times bestseller Homecoming --"An ambitious, compelling historical mystery with a fabulous cast of characters...Kate Morton at her very best." --Kristin Hannah
" An elaborate tapestry...Morton doesn't disappoint ." -- The Washington Post
" Classic English country-house Goth at its finest ." -- New York Post
In the depths of a 19th-century winter, a little girl is abandoned on the streets of Victorian London. She grows up to become in turn a thief, an artist's muse, and a lover. In the summer of 1862, shortly after her eighteenth birthday, she travels with a group of artists to a beautiful house on a bend of the Upper Thames. Tensions simmer and one hot afternoon a gunshot rings out. A woman is killed, another disappears, and the truth of what happened slips through the cracks of time. It is not until over a century later, when another young woman is drawn to Birchwood Manor, that its secrets are finally revealed.
Told by multiple voices across time, this is an intricately layered, richly atmospheric novel about art and passion, forgiveness and loss, that shows us that sometimes the way forward is through the past.
Author Notes
Kate Morton was born in South Australia in 1976. She earned a degree in speech and drama from Trinity College London, an English literature degree from the University of Queensland, and a master's degree focusing on tragedy in Victorian literature from the University of Queensland. She also completed a summer Shakespeare course at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. She is currently enrolled in a Ph.D. program researching contemporary novels that marry elements of gothic and mystery fiction.
She won the Australian Book Industry Award for General Fiction Book of the Year in 2007 for her debut novel, The Shifting Fog, also known as The House at Riverton. Her other books include The Distant Hours, and The Forgotten Garden, which won the Australian Book Industry Award for General Fiction Book of the Year in 2009. Her books The Secret Keeper and The Lake House were New York Times bestsellers.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Morton (The Lake House) explores the tangled history of people and place in her outstanding, bittersweet sixth novel. In contemporary London, Elodie, a young archivist, encounters among her employer's collection a satchel, a photographic portrait, and a sketch of a country house. The sketch, in particular, arouses Elodie's professional curiosity and her memories, since it bears close resemblance to a house figuring heavily in the magical stories her late mother once told her. The trail of Elodie's research-spurred by her discovery that the sketch depicts an actual place-is woven together with tales of the house's various denizens between 1862 and the present, as well as with the voice of a spirit who haunts its walls. This specter-who remains nameless for most of the novel-is the clock maker's daughter of the title, abandoned as a young girl, trained as a pickpocket, and eventually chosen as an artist's muse, but possessing an artist's eye of her own. The novel's central mystery focuses on the circumstances of her abrupt disappearance in the 19th century, entangled with the abduction of a priceless jewel, the murder of the artist's fiancée, and the artist's personal and professional collapse. At the novel's emotional core, however, is the intersection of lives across decades, united, as the ethereal narrator suggests, by a shared experience of "loss that ties them together." In addition to love-not only romantic love but also love between parents and siblings-and loss, the stories, brilliantly told by Morton, offer musings on art, betrayal, and the ways in which real lives and real places can evolve over time into the stuff of legends. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
The discovery of an old photograph leads London archivist Elodie Winslow to a house from a bedtime story told by her late mother. The house is very real, and very haunted by the ghost of Birdie, a former pickpocket and model for Edward Radcliffe the most underappreciated member of the Magenta Brotherhood, a group of artists of the aesthetic movement who died in drug-addled obscurity after his fiancée was shot and a family jewel stolen. Morton's (The Lake House, 2015) fans will expect the two stories to intersect. But in her most ambitious work yet, she deftly weaves together the stories of Elodie; Birdie; Edward's sister, Lucy; a curious female student at the turn of the century; an academic in the late 1930s; a young family evacuating London during WWII; and a legend about medieval fairies. It sounds like a lot, but with Birchwood Manor, a Tudor-era home with secrets of its own, as the anchor and the missing Radcliffe Blue diamond as the chain, Morton proves once again that history is not a straight line but an intricate, infinite web.--Susan Maguire Copyright 2018 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Although Lily Millington, the titular character of this novel, is a smart and compassionate ghost, she's unreliable: Was she the victim or the perpetrator of a murder that happened one night in 1862 at Birchfield Manor? To escape stuffy London for the summer, Lily and her lover, acclaimed artist Edward Radcliffe, and assorted bohemian youth went to Edward's house in the country. Then his proper Victorian fiancée showed up-and someone died. Another guest was Lucy, Edward's beloved little sister, 13 at the time. A conventional murder mystery might have ended there, with readers believing Lily, but tough, sympathetic Lucy must carry on this epic that spans generations, eras, and wars. Her famous brother, Radcliffe, unable to recover from the tragedy, has disappeared. She grows up, eventually inheriting Birchfield, which, she learns, is over 400 years old, and reinvents it as a school for young girls. That's where readers meet Ada, yet another impressive character, whose accidental proximity to a death repeats the pattern. Whodunit fans will gobble up this work, trying to solve the multiple mysteries. This best-selling Australian author's absorbing saga of family, love, and history has much to offer eager readers. VERDICT A must-have for all collections.-Georgia Christgau, Middle College High School, Long Island City, NY © Copyright 2019. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Morton's interest in houses as repositories of secrets (The House at Riverton, 2008; The Lake House, 2015) reaches full flower in her latest novel.The author's current architectural bellwether is Birchwood Manor, a country house on the Thames. Successive generations have inhabited Birchwood, which was the summer home, briefly, of Victorian artist Edward Radcliffe, member of a Pre-Raphaelite-esque painting cabal. All the people for whom Birchwood holds a special attraction are, in some way, abandoned children. The unifying presence at Birchwood is Lily, whose connection, presumably romantic, with Edward is not immediately revealed. She is also the only permanent tenant, since she is a ghost. Lily spies on the other guests, most recently Jack, a photojournalist, and occasionally meddles. At 5, Lily was consigned to a more genteel version of Fagin's den of thieves by her clockmaker father, who then decamped for America. The characters across different time periods are enmeshed with each other and with Edward and the murky circumstancesincluding a murder and a diamond heistpreceding his death. In 2017, Elodie is an archivist who sees Lily's photo among Edward's effects and experiences a shock of recognition. Elodie's mother, a famous cellist, also died under suspicious circumstances near Birchwood. In 1899, Ada, a young Anglo-Indian, is dropped off at the girls' school that occupied Birchwood for a time, with no explanation by her parents, who then head back to India. Lucy, Edward's sister, inherited the house and founded the school. In 1928, Leonard, a historian still grieving the loss of his brother in the Great War, arrives at Birchwood to research Edward, aided by the now elderly Lucy. Juliet, in 1940, escapes the London Blitz for the shelter of Birchwood. The ratcheting between eras makes sorting the many characters all the more challenging, while the powerful theme of bereft childhood gets lost in an excess of exemplars. Nevertheless, those who appreciate a leisurely and meditative read, with lush settings, meticulous period detail, and slowly unfurling enigmas, will enjoy this book.Overpopulated and overworked. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
The discovery of a misplaced satchel containing a sketchbook and a Victorian-era photograph of a young woman intrigues Elodie Winslow, archivist at the London-based Stratton, Cadwell, & Co. One of the drawings of a country house viscerally takes Elodie by surprise. It's a perfect illustration of a place from a childhood fairy tale told to her by her long-deceased mother. Precise, disciplined Elodie feels compelled to break the archive's rules by taking the photo and the sketch with her to discover their secrets. Her quest to find the house and the identity of the beautiful woman as well as how this connects to her mother leads her to a group of Victorian artists and a series of tragedies on a summer's afternoon with the house bearing witness to it all. International best-selling author Morton's (The Lake House) sumptuous tale of love, loss, heartache, and hope skillfully intertwines the contemporary, historical, and phantasmagorical to create a Dickensian tale filled with lavish imagery and richly emotional characters who come alive from one generation to the next. VERDICT For fans of intricate, gothic, atmospheric novels reminiscent of Sarah Waters or Diane Setterfield. [See Prepub Alert, 4/9/18.]-Joy Gunn, Paseo Verde Lib., Henderson, NV © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
We came to Birchwood Manor because Edward said that it was haunted. It wasn't, not then, but it's a dull man who lets truth stand in the way of a good story, and Edward was never that. His passion, his blinding faith in whatever he professed, was one of the things I fell in love with. He had the preacher's zeal, a way of expressing opinions that minted them into gleaming currency. A habit of drawing people to him, of firing in them enthusiasms they hadn't known were theirs, making all but himself and his convictions fade. But Edward was no preacher. I remember him. I remember everything. -- The glass-roofed studio in his mother's London garden, the smell of freshly mixed paint, the scratch of bristle on canvas as his gaze swept my skin. My nerves that day were prickles. I was eager to impress, to make him think me something I was not, as his eyes traced my length and Mrs. Mack's entreaty circled in my head: "Your mother was a proper lady, your people were grand folk, and don't you go forgetting it. Play your cards right and all our birds might just come home to roost." And so I sat up straighter on the rosewood chair that first day in the whitewashed room behind the tangle of blushing sweet peas. His littlest sister brought me tea, and cake when I was hungry. His mother, too, came down the narrow path to watch him work. She adored her son. In him she glimpsed the family's hopes fulfilled. Distinguished member of the Royal Academy, engaged to a lady of some means, father soon to a clutch of brown-eyed heirs. Not for him the likes of me. -- His mother blamed herself for what came next, but she'd have more easily halted day from meeting night than keep us apart. He called me his muse, his destiny. He said that he had known at once, when he saw me through the hazy gaslight of the theater foyer on Drury Lane. I was his muse, his destiny. And he was mine. It was long ago; it was yesterday. Oh, I remember love. -- This corner, halfway up the main flight of stairs, is my favorite. It is a strange house, built to be purposely confusing. Staircases that turn at unusual angles, all knees and elbows and uneven treads; windows that do not line up no matter how one squints at them; floorboards and wall panels with clever concealments. In this corner, there's a warmth, almost unnatural. We all noticed it when first we came, and over the early summer weeks we took our turns in guessing at its cause. The reason took me some time to discover, but at last I learned the truth. I know this place as I know my own name. -- It was not the house itself but the light that Edward used to tempt the others. On a clear day, from the attic windows, one can see over the river Thames and all the way to the distant mountains. Ribbons of mauve and green, crags of chalk that stagger towards the clouds, and warm air that lends the whole an iridescence. This was the proposal that he made: an entire summer month of paint and poetry and picnics, of stories and science and invention. Of light, heaven-sent. Away from London, away from prying eyes. Little wonder that the others accepted with alacrity. Edward could make the very devil pray, if such were his desire. Only to me did he confess his other reason for coming here. For although the lure of the light was real enough, Edward had a secret. -- We came on foot from the railway station. July, and the day was perfect. A breeze picked at my skirt hem. Someone had brought sandwiches and we ate them as we walked. What a sight we must have made--men with loosened neckties, women with their long hair free. Laughter, teasing, sport. Such a grand beginning! I remember the sound of a stream close by and a wood pigeon calling overhead. A man leading a horse, a wagon with a young boy sitting atop straw bales, the smell of freshcut grass-- Oh, how I miss that smell! A clutch of fat country geese regarded us beadily when we reached the river before honking bravelonce we had passed. All was light, but it did not last for long. You knew that already, though, for there would be no story to tell if the warmth had lasted. No one is interested in quiet, happy summers that end as they begin. Edward taught me that. -- The isolation played its part, this house, stranded on the riverbank like a great inland ship. The weather, too; the blazing hot days, one after the other, and then the summer storm that night, which forced us all indoors. The winds blew and the trees moaned, and thunder rolled down the river to take the house within its clutches; while inside, talk turned to spirits and enchantments. There was a fire, crackling in the grate, and the candle flames quivered, and in the darkness, in that atmosphere of delicious fear and confession, something ill was conjured. Not a ghost, oh, no, not that--the deed when done was entirely human. Two unexpected guests. Two long-kept secrets. A gunshot in the dark. -- The light went out and everything was black. Summer was curdled. The first keen leaves began their fall, turning to rot in the puddles beneath the thinning hedgerows, and Edward, who loved this house, began to stalk its corridors, entrapped. At last, he could stand it no longer. He packed his things to leave and I could not make him stop. The others followed, as they always did. And I? I had no choice; I stayed behind. Excerpted from The Clockmaker's Daughter by Kate Morton All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
