The Clockmaker's Daughter by Kate Morton
Review copy via netgalley
Atria Books, October 2018

From the bestselling author of The House at Riverton and The Secret Keeper, Kate Morton brings us her dazzling sixth novel, The Clockmaker's Daughter. 

My real name, no one remembers.

The truth about that summer, no one else knows.

In the summer of 1862, a group of young artists led by the passionate and talented Edward Radcliffe descends upon Birchwood Manor on the banks of the Upper Thames. Their plan: to spend a secluded summer month in a haze of inspiration and creativity. But by the time their stay is over, one woman has been shot dead while another has disappeared; a priceless heirloom is missing, and Edward Radcliffe’s life is in ruins. 

Over one hundred and fifty years later, Elodie Winslow, a young archivist in London, uncovers a leather satchel containing two seemingly unrelated items: a sepia photograph of an arresting-looking woman in Victorian clothing, and an artist’s sketchbook containing a drawing of a twin-gabled house on the bend of a river. 

Why does Birchwood Manor feel so familiar to Elodie? And who is the beautiful woman in the photograph? Will she ever give up her secrets?

Told by multiple voices across time, The Clockmaker’s Daughter is a story of murder, mystery, and thievery, of art, love, and loss. And flowing through its pages like a river is the voice of a woman who stands outside time, whose name has been forgotten by history, but who has watched it all unfold: Birdie Bell, the clockmaker’s daughter.

It took me a month to read this book. July 17th I was enthralled with the amazing lyrical first sentences and I was so excited to begin another adventure from Kate Morton's mind! The writing style is definitely something to be envious of, but this actual story was so long and slow going that I was so relieved when I was done with it. I definitely could have lived without this cobweb of forgettable characters and not to mention the fact that the house was a character, too...

In a nutshell as I understood it is that a few artists meet at the spooky house and something crazy happens and the artist's lives are never the same and now the current generation tries to unravel what happened. Schoolgirls, siblings, parents,  and lovers' lives all intermingle into this story of a house and a rare blue stone.

My status updates on Goodreads while reading this reminded me of how I kept falling asleep while reading it. I think if the main character Elodie was an actual main character instead of disappearing from the plot for chapters on end it may have helped with the transitional periods but I don't know. Somehow it was all supposed to come together but it never did for me and it seemed that the author was so tired of the story that she finally just ended it, the end. Definitely a novel you're going to really get, or really hate.

I adored The Lake House and The Forgotten Garden, so all hope is not lost as I still have some others from Morton's backlist to read.


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The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
Published February 16th 2010 by Washington Square Press (first published 2008)
personal library purchase
Review of The Lake House by Kate Morton can be found here

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-first 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.

This was a very well written tale that is very hard to put down - I devoured the 552 pages within three days. I don't even know what possessed me to pick it up -- I had stood in my own study and contemplated what to read next and this was the first one I touched. Very lucky to have this spring break to sit and read most of the days away as I am making up for last year's spring break when I was packing my old library up and begging people to take books. I kept most books that I felt I would get around to reading in my lifetime and I am so glad I did.

With a fairly-tale feel this is a novel that twists and turns like an invasive vine sprouting new shoots this way and that way; trying to discover the truth of the little girl's origins who was abandoned on a ship takes us from Australia to England and several generations of secrets and deceptions. The mysterious cottage that holds all the clues to the past is waiting to be unearthed by the present day character Cassandra who is the grand-daughter of the little girl who was once abandoned. The story blends several timelines as we slowly unravel the vines to discover the reasons behind the abandoned girl and where she really came from.

This book is pretty much the perfect type of read for me personally: mystery, history, a small nuance of romance and absolute delightful storytelling.

Read an excerpt here.
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The Lake House by Kate Morton
Atria Books, October 2015
606 pages
Source- Kindle Library Loan
Burton Book Review Rating: 5 stars




This is Morton's fifth novel and I have most- if not all- of her other novels. Time is not my friend however and so this newest release of hers is actually the first one I have read. It was slow going at my first try; it could have been personal pressures etc. but I wondered if I was going to be able to finish this digital library loan before it expired. Then I realized it was six hundred pages and I really worried! Soon though, I was able to dig in, and get completely absorbed in the story of a young girl whose family is perfect on the outside and yet things are never what they seem.

It is one of those stories that flip through different generations back and forth with different characters, which gets a little confusing to explain, but it was very well done this time as we are trying to solve little mysteries along the way of what happened way back when on a glorious family estate in Cornwall.

Little clues are given along the way and you really think it's going this way, but in the end I can definitely say I did not see that coming. It was a feel-good happy ending that made me teary. If you like Susanna Kearsley, you will love this one. It's a chunky one and it was just awesome for when you can settle in and sink your teeth into a great story that has suspense, romance, mystery and drama all rolled up into a pretty engrossing package. Definitely pushing the back-list closer to my will-read-this-lifetime-so-help-me-God pile.