Review: The House at Riverton by Kate Morton

Title: The House at Riverton
Author: Kate Morton
Publication Date: 15 June 2007
Publisher: Pan
Pages: 352
Rating: 5/5

Summary
Summer 1924: On the eve of a glittering Society party, by the lake of a grand English country house, a young poet takes his life. The only witnesses, sisters Hannah and Emmeline Hartford, will never speak to each other again.
Winter 1999: Grace Bradley, 98, one-time housemaid of Riverton Manor, is visited by a young director making a film about the poet's suicide. Ghosts awaken and memories, long-consigned to the dark reaches of Grace's mind, begin to sneak back through the cracks. A shocking secret threatens to emerge; something history has forgotten but Grace never could.
A thrilling mystery and a compelling love story, The House at Riverton will appeal to readers of Ian McEwan's Atonement, L.P. Hartley's The Go-Between, and lovers of the film Gosford Park.

Review
This was one of the Richard and Judy summer reads a couple of years ago, I know they're not always popular but I usually find them good for introducing me to new authors. I wasn't disappointed in Kate Morton.

The novel jumps backwards in time between the present day and the 1920's. Ordinarily I wouldn't consider a book which would be considered `historical fiction' but I'd heard good things about this and thought I'd give it a try, expecting to get part way through only to abandon. There was no abandoning this, once I started reading I was hooked. The setting is perfectly portrayed and you feel an understanding of what it must have been like to have lived through the 20's.

Kate Morton's writing is excellent and she builds a vivid picture. Although you know what the novel is building to, the ending is still a surprise and one where I needed my box of tissues as the bond with Grace, the narrator, had become so strong.

A book I would highly recommend.