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| image via Goodreads.com |
A fun summer mystery. The author did a great job of keeping so many perspectives and time periods (same story over 100 years) easy to follow and enjoy.The beginning was a touch slow but then I was totally hooked. Fantastic story, and I even enjoyed the inserted fairy tales. Clean, and a book I think most would love to read. Grab it before the summer is over.
Goodreads.com summary: A tiny girl is abandoned on a ship headed for Australia in 1913. She arrives completely alone with nothing but a small suitcase containing a few clothes and a single book—a beautiful volume of fairy tales. She is taken in by the dockmaster and his wife and raised as their own. On her twenty-fi rst birthday, they tell her the truth, and with her sense of self shattered and very little to go on, “Nell” sets out to trace her real identity. Her quest leads her to Blackhurst Manor on the Cornish coast and the secrets of the doomed Mountrachet family. But it is not until her granddaughter, Cassandra, takes up the search after Nell’s death that all the pieces of the puzzle are assembled. A spellbinding tale of mystery and self-discovery, The Forgotten Garden will take hold of your imagination and never let go.
Content Notes for The Forgotten Garden
Clean, and a book I think most people would love to read. There is nothing here I would warn a reader about.
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Frequently Asked Questions: The Forgotten Garden
Is The Forgotten Garden clean?
Yes — clean, and a book I think most readers would love. There is nothing explicit and no language issue. It is a mystery involving an abandoned child and buried family secrets, so there is sadness in the story, but nothing I would warn anyone about in advance.
Is the multiple timeline confusing?
That is the impressive part — it is not. The same story unfolds across more than a hundred years and several points of view, and the author keeps every thread easy to follow. If you have been burned by multi-timeline novels before, this is the one that does it properly.
Why is the beginning slow?
It spends its opening establishing several timelines at once before any of them start paying off. The beginning is a touch slow, and then I was totally hooked. If you tend to abandon books early, push through the setup — the payoff is real and it comes reasonably soon.
Is it a good beach read?
Ideal, and that is how I first recommended it. It is absorbing enough to hold you across long stretches of reading, clean enough to hand to anyone, and mysterious enough that you will keep picking it back up. It is a summer book with more substance than most.
