The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton

This is a book that I am going to give 4.5 stars but since GoodReads doesn’t allow for such indecision, I will have to stick with 4 stars. I feel the need to defend my rating here, since I was relishing the book so much for the first half, I had already formed the review of a full five-star rating book. That was last night though, and once I set off into the second half of the book, it did not make me as emotional as the first half did.

The story is layered with different times and the different situations of mostly three women with just a generation gap between the first two.First we have Nell, a foundling told of her unknown arrival into a family of two which quickly grew, at her twenty-first birthday.The information weighed heavily on her and caused her to change irrevocably.Then we have Cassie who was by her bedside when her grandmother passes on.Cassie is given the information about her grandmother’s history after the funeral and also a trail of breadcrumbs(of information) left by her Grandmother herself. She then sets out to piece together what she can about her own ancestry. The first introduction she gets is to Eliza Makepeace who is an author of fairy tales bewitchingly complicated for innocent minds.We have a parallel narration running , which gives us a look into Eliza’s bleak life.This is not just about uncomfortable circumstances, but how fate is not just about the chances you take but also about determination. The few people who weave in and out of the story have a lot of weight in setting the tone of the book.There is also the unseen, dropping hints at odd times to set the searchers on the path to the final revelation.

I always have a fascination for such stories, and this one has all the elements of making it an exciting read.