The Forgotten Garden

Critics

• Book review: Kate Morton's *The Forgotten Garden*

  The Forgotten Garden Kate Morton Atria Hardcover 560 pages April 2009 At first glance an epic tale of love and family secrets, Morton’s sweeping novel crosses continents from Australia to England, in the process giving us a symbolic rendering of the ... (read full critics)

  curledup published on Tue, 7 Sep 2010

• Bookreporter.com - THE FORGOTTEN GARDEN by Kate Morton

  I’m crazy about fairy tales. Always have been, always will be. But I don’t mean perky animated movies like The Little Mermaid; I mean the eerie, ambiguous narratives of Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm, or the late 19th-century retellin ... (read full critics)

  bookreporter published on Sun, 29 Aug 2010

6 Reviews

• 1 person find this helpful

  

  Brisbane - London - Cornwall - 2005 - 1970's -1900's

  Loved it. It is beautifully written, it takes you to other countries, periods of time, places. The characters are great and the mistery is intriguing. I loved the fact that it is narrated from different voices in different years. One of my favourite books, and one of the books I wish I wrote!

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  Mati said on Mar 14, 2011 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

• 1 person find this helpful

  

  I found this as engrossing as her debut which I read earlier this year. This time Kate Morton has written an intriguing mystery that started in the 1900’s and is not fully unravelled until 2005. It is told as three stories covering three generations combining to give us clues along the way.
  May ... (continue)

  I found this as engrossing as her debut which I read earlier this year. This time Kate Morton has written an intriguing mystery that started in the 1900’s and is not fully unravelled until 2005. It is told as three stories covering three generations combining to give us clues along the way.
  Maybe the ending was a little predictable but I certainly did not guess all the answers to the mysteries along the way.
  The protagonist is Nell around who the whole mystery centres. The story starts in London when Nell as a little girl finds herself unexpectedly travelling by ship to Australia alone. The lady she calls the Authoress having mysteriously disappeared instead of looking after her as promised. Arriving in Australia as an orphan she is given a home by Hugh a dock worker who finds her alone on the dockside on her arrival in Maryborough. It is only on her 21st birthday she learns of her mysterious arrival in Australia, a secret that changes her life dramatically.
  It is many years later in 1975 that she embarks upon a search for the truth about her birth and early years. Drawn to Cornwall by information she has discovered, she finds herself buying a cottage in the grounds of Blackhurst Manor once owned by the Mountrachet family. She plans to return to England to live in her new cottage after sorting out her affairs back in Australia. However life intervened and Nell never returned to Cornwall, the ownership of the cottage remaining her secret.
  On her death in 2005 Nell leaves the cottage as a surprise inheritance to her granddaughter Cassandra. It is while visiting her inheritance that Cassandra finally uncovers the secrets surrounding the Mountrachet family Linus, his wife Adeline, their daughter Rose and cousin Eliza, daughter of Linus’s sister Georgiana.
  How are the family all involved in the disappearance of that little girl nearly a hundred years ago?
  I am obviously not going to reveal this and spoil the mystery!

  I think the author may be a fan of The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett as not only does The Forgotten Garden remind me in some ways of this classic novel but its author makes an appearance in the story!
  I read it far too quickly for a novel that is nearly 650 pages. Only took two days. Ok the weather was very hot and I did not feel like doing much else, but to be honest I could not put it down!!

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  Lindyloumac said on Nov 3, 2009 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

• 

  You need memories to keep things from the past alive. Quot.

  Breathtakingly splendid. One of the most beautifully written books I've ever read. Like when you find an old box hidden from an ancient time and when you open it what you find inside is a big treasure that warms your heart. This is the feeling now, as I finished this amazing book: warmth.
  Three gene ... (continue)

  Breathtakingly splendid. One of the most beautifully written books I've ever read. Like when you find an old box hidden from an ancient time and when you open it what you find inside is a big treasure that warms your heart. This is the feeling now, as I finished this amazing book: warmth.
  Three generations, one family secret. In 1913 a little girl is alone on a ship from England to Australia. A woman, the Authoress, told her to hide. She will be coming back soon for her and they will travel together. But the Authoress will never come back and the little girl will face her new future. In 1975 Nell, a middle-aged woman travels to England looking for answers. On her 21st birthday her father told her she was adopted and now she is looking for her real family. In 2005 Cassandra, after her grandmother Nell's death inherits a cottage in England, exactly where Nell's quest had started. Together with her grandmother's notes of the time she spent there, a couple of her childhood things (among which the Fairy Tales book by the same Authoress) she will slowly unveil the secret and find the truth about Nell's and her own past.
  A page turner, definitely. A novel jumping from century to century never for once losing the thread of the plot. Fascinating the idea of include the Authoress' fairy tales into the story. The reader is compelled to finish it, because page after page a detail is discovered and like a very difficult puzzle, all pieces come together in the end.

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  Katia Guido said on Apr 28, 2011 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

• 

  Loved this Audio book. An intriguing mystery that covers several generations.

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  Lgpitre said on Mar 31, 2011 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

• 

  An enchanting read - I truly enjoyed it!

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  Nini said on Aug 10, 2010 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

• 

  Full of twists and surprises!

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  Valentine said on Sep 27, 2009 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

Book Details

• Rating:
  (49)
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• English Books
• Hardcover 480 Pages
• ISBN-10: 1416550542
• ISBN-13: 9781416550549
• Publisher: Atria
• Pub date: Apr 07, 2009
• Also available as: Paperback, Audio CD, Others and eBook
• In other languages: other languages Livres Français, Deutsche Bücher, Libros en Español, Libri Italiani

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