The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton

A brief synopsis

A lost child...

On the eve of the first world war, a little girl is found abandoned on a ship to Australia. A mysterious woman called the Authoress had promised to look after her - but the Authoress has disappeared without a trace.

A terrible secret...

On the night of her twenty-first birthday, Nell O'Connor learns a secret that will change her life forever. Decades later, she embarks upon a search for the truth that leads her to the windswept Cornish coast and the strange and beautiful Blackhurst Manor, once owned by the aristocratic Mountrachet family.

A mysterious inheritance...

On Nell's death, her grand-daughter, Cassandra, comes into an unexpected inheritance. Cliff Cottage and its forgotten garden are notorious amongst the Cornish locals for the secrets they hold - secrets about the doomed Mountrachet family and their ward Eliza Makepeace, a writer of dark Victorian fairytales. It is here that Cassandra will finally uncover the truth about the family, and solve the century-old mystery of a little girl lost.
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This is another hefty tome from the bestelling author of 'The House at Riverton'. The tale meanders back and forth from the early 1900s to 1975 and 2005. I don't usually mind stories that jump around in time, but even for me, this one was a little disjointed. By far the most interesting (to me) part of the book was set in the 1900s and I felt that with a bit of tweaking, one could do away with the most modern characters completely!

It is a tale full of secrets, and it is the unravelling of them that concerns modern day Cassandra, a character I never fully believed in and couldn't bring myself to care about. Fortunately, Eliza and Rose, who live in the 1900s make up for the wishy washy Cassandra, and it their entwined lives that make this book worth reading.

Lady's Maid by Margaret Forster

I've never read such an in depth study of what it was to be a lady's maid in the 1800s. Lily Wilson was a real person and really was employed as Elizabeth Barrett Brownings maid but one can hardly believe she was as 'real' as Forster's creation. Her thoughts, feelings and emotions are minutely examined. Her relationship with with Barrett Browning is the main focus of the book and it is this that creates the tension, the rollercoaster of emotions we experience through Lily.

There were times I loathed the Elizabeth Barrett Browning of this book, I felt she was warm towards Lily when she was useful to her, but if Lily was in trouble she became cold and unfeeling. I found myself caring deeply for Lily and behind her all the way.

An utterly absorbing and emotionally stirring read!

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

Simply sublime, I can't fault this book. I am drawn to the time before the second world war when the upper middle classes still lived in their big country houses and had cocktails before dinner. I love the eccentricity, the (unintentional?) comedy of this particular set of people. I think I feel a sort of sympathy for them as their way of life was on the brink of extinction and I wonder if they were aware of it at the time.

I haven't actually seen the television version of the book but would now like to rent it. I intend to read more of Evelyn Waugh too now, this was my first and what a pleasure it was.

Death by Lightning by Gail Anderson-Dargatz

From the back of the book..
'The remote Turtle Valley in British Columbia is home to fifteen-year-old Beth Weeks and a community of eccentric but familiar characters. There, amidst a stunning landscape of purple swallows and green skies, strange unsettling events occur; children go missing, a girl is mauled by a crazy bear and Beth too is being pursued....The Cure for Death by Lightning is a rich and thrilling novel, as filled with strange deeds and dark fears as with beauty and magic'.
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I love the 'magical realism' genre and although this book wasn't fully a magical realist novel, there were parts of the story that were magical and out of the ordinary.

It was also very brutal. I hadn't expected it and am surprised no mention is made of it in the synopsis. If you are sensitive when it comes to the pain and suffering of animals, beware, there is plenty of it in this book. Fortunately it's balanced with the entrancing story of Beth's first romance, the wonderful recipes, the beauty of the pre- second world war countryside.

Despite the aforementioned occurrences of (often needless) animal suffering, I loved so much about this book, it's was a beautiful, heartbreaking story of a way of life that no longer exists.