The Forgotten Garden and The House at Riverton

The Forgotten Garden and The House at Riverton by Kate Morton were two books that had been recommended to me a few times.

I read The Forgotten Garden first and was instantly smitten. Four year old Nell is found alone on the docks after a voyage from England to Australia. She is taken in by the port master and his wife and grows up knowing little of where she came from or the adventure that brought her to the only life she knows.

Years later, she finds out that she is not the port master's daughter and begins a journey to make sense of the snippets of memories she has. Life gets in the way as Nell takes in her granddaughter who eventually takes up the search and learns of her grandmother's true identity and heritage. Morton does a wonderful job of jumping back and forth through time to tell the story and keep you enthralled.

The House at Riverton was Morton's first novel and while it was compelling and also contained a mystery, I didn't love it as much. It was more of an Upstairs Downstairs or Gosford Park story - with young Grace arriving at Riverton to be a maid at the house where her mother worked for years. Grace becomes enamored with the children who visit the house - David, Hannah and Emmeline - and becomes faithful to them as a maid and secret keeper until the end of her life when she is compelled into memories by the creation of a film about a fateful night at the estate.