The Forgotten Garden

4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars | 15,944 ratings

Price: 27.29

Last update: 10-19-2024


About this item

Thirty-eight year old Cassandra is lost, alone and grieving. Her much loved grandmother, Nell, has just died and Cassandra, her life already shaken by a tragic accident ten years ago, feels like she has lost everything known and dear to her. But an unexpected and mysterious bequest from Nell turns Cassandra’s life upside down and ends up challenging everything she thought she knew about herself and her family. Inheriting a book of dark and intriguing fairytales written by Eliza Makepeace Rutherford―the Victorian authoress who disappeared mysteriously in the early twentieth century―as well as a cliff-top cottage on the other side of the world, Cassandra takes her courage in both hands to follow in the footsteps of Nell, on a quest to find out the truth about their history, their family and their past; little knowing that in the process, she will also discover a new life for herself.

Reviews for The House at Riverton (also known as The Shifting Fog):

"A stunning must-read story that’s set for stardom" ―Woman’s Day magazine

"This debut page-turner… recounts the crumbling of a prominent British family as seen through the eyes of one of its servants…. Morton triumphs with a riveting plot, a touching but tense love story and a haunting ending." ―Publishers Weekly


Top reviews from the United States

Korynne
5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful historical fiction with magical undertones.
Reviewed in the United States on January 28, 2018
Kate Morton just became my new favourite author, and this was only the first book of hers that I've read.

The Forgotten Garden is a mysterious multi-generational historical fiction. It was everything I wanted in a good book, and I was completely lost in its seemingly magical English setting. The book follows Nell, who finds out on her twenty-first birthday that her parents are not her biological parents. This news shatters her sense of identity, and Nell becomes determined to discover the truth of her origins. Throughout her life, Nell searches for answers to her past, but her journey is suddenly put to an end when extenuating circumstances take over. Now dying from old age in her final days and unable to uncover the full truth, Nell leaves the search of her identity to her granddaughter, Cassandra. Cassandra is intrigued to take up this journey, and she travels across the world to find the answers that have been hidden for almost a century in a forgotten garden.

This story is told from many viewpoints but most notably from Nell's perspective in the 1970s, from Cassandra's perspective in the present day (2005), and from Eliza's perspective in the turn of the twentieth century. For the first fifty or so pages of this book, the jumping time periods and multiple points of view were a bit confusing, and I had some trouble keeping all the details straight, but soon I learned each character's voice and was able to follow along clearly. The multiple time periods add suspense to the story that just kept me turning the pages because some detail would be revealed, and I wanted to see how the characters reacted to it, but then the chapter would end and the next chapter in a new decade would start. Each chapter ended like this, which just kept my interest piqued throughout the whole story.

Something that Kate Morton does very well in this book (and I presume in her other books?) is to answer questions throughout the whole story. I do not like reading mysteries where the author keeps introducing more and more questions and adding to the suspense but will not drop any hints or answers until the very last page. Those books feel so rushed, and I just get frustrated. This book is completely different: we get answers all along the journey with the characters as they slowly learn secrets of their pasts. Of course, this means we also get more questions, but that is to be expected. I savoured every detail and loved trying to piece together the puzzle right along with the characters.

On the same note, another thing that Kate Morton does exceptionally well is to keep the reader guessing until the very end. I had speculations at the beginning, but she challenged my thoughts with every chapter. I thought I knew exactly the right answers, who was connected to who, but then another piece of history would come to light and I would have to rethink all my assumptions. Readers truly do not get the last piece of the puzzle until the last few chapters of the book. I loved that Morton wrote in this manner because I really dislike reading a book and knowing the end very early on; it makes the story lackluster and very predictable, but The Forgotten Garden was anything but.

In short, I devoured this book and was completely lost in the historical time period within its pages. I loved the main characters and their stories and felt like I knew them personally from all the details shared about their lives. This book is not a fantasy, but it has a magical, ethereal quality to it that I just adored. I would love to have my very own forgotten garden like the one in this book, but alas, I do not. What I do have, however, is the desire to read every one of Kate Morton's books now because I can only hope they are as beautiful as this one is.

"You make a life out of what you have, not what you're missing."
Utah Mom
4.0 out of 5 stars Get Lost Within the Tale
Reviewed in the United States on February 6, 2011
The Forgotten Garden is one of those glorious books that is easy to get lost within the pages. While the language is not overdone (just coming off Hawthorne, it initially seemed a bit simple, in fact), Morton does a good job of describing the setting and the fascinating, odd and frightening characters within it.

It's long but it's one of those stories that I really couldn't put down once I'd started reading it. The story takes center stage in this novel. Morton has no social agendas or deep themes. She is simply telling a fascinating and sometimes horrifying tale. Using various characters' viewpoints and skipping back and forth to and from the past, Morton carefully weaves the tantalizing and intriguing tale.

In 1913, a small girl disembarks from a ship in Australia. She is alone, carrying a small suitcase and has forgotten her name. The dock master takes her home to his wife. They name her Nell and raise her as their own. On her twenty first birthday, her father tells her the truth of her origins and she embarks on a quest to solve the mystery of her forgotten past. Even though she gets close, the full truth will remain hidden in spite of Nell's efforts. Eventually her granddaughter Cassandra will take up the search when she discovers that upon her grandmother's death she has inherited a cottage on the sea cliffs of England. With the cottage she also discovers a walled garden, a secret garden. A forgotten garden.

The garden and a few aspects of this novel reminded me of The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett and I had to laugh when later in the book, Morton works in a scene with the famous novelist and implies that the inspiration for Burnett's work came from this forgotten garden on the Cornish Coast. Clever indeed.

I highly recommend it as a fabulously pleasurable read. Enjoy!

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