THE HOUSE AT RIVERTON by KATE MORTON

THE HOUSE AT RIVERTON

BY KATE MORTON

THE BLURB:-

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, ninety-eight, one-time housemaid at Riverton Manor, is visited by a young director making a film about the poet's suicide. Ghosts awaken and old memories- long consigned to the dark reaches of Grace's mind- begin to sneak back through the cracks. A shocking secret begins to emerge, something history has forgotten but Grace never could.

THE REALITY:-

This was the first of Kate Morton's novels, the first I read (back at the end of 2013, before I began blogging) and, in my opinion, the worst. But, I felt that I needed to re-cap so, when I found it in a charity shop in Boscombe, I thought I'd give it another go. I couldn't remember that much about it, apart from there being some kind of- spoiler alert!- fake suicide.

I'm not quite sure why this wasn't my favourite book by this author, as it had all of the ingredients guaranteed to please: it's a tome, it's set in a dreamy country estate, two of its main characters are society sisters, it compares modern times with the past, etc. I'm not saying that I didn't enjoy it, just that it didn't grab me as much as other works by this author did, which is only normal- everyone is going to have a best and worst loved, by any artiste.

I did race through to the end, though, so the novel certainly had a gripping element... or did I just become a bit bored with Hannah, after she married? I also wanted to shake her out of allowing the likes of her sister in-law, Deborah, to control her, though, so the story obviously aroused some feeling in me. I'm glad Hannah managed to find her mojo, via her affair.

The characters developed well and I did like the way the story was not quite in order, as we have some reminiscing by Grace, before finding out how the final scene actually played out. It all came together like a jigsaw in the end. The concept of a three-person game was a clever theme throughout, and a kind of structure, and I think that Hannah chose wisely in the end. Read the book and you'll see what I mean, although it's a shame she had to choose at all. The story, as a whole, came across as a bit of a strategy and the theme of secrets featured and added intrigue. We had to turn the pages to find out what Grace's long-kept concealment was all about, and why her lack of knowledge of shorthand was important. We found out more about Ursula's real involvement, Grace's parentage, and I was glad to see Alfred make a reappearance, in a very pleasing way.

Riverton came across as such a lovely place to live, in a time when class boundaries were changing. This was another book where World War I featured and we got to see how death and shell shock affected the whole estate and equilibrium of both individuals and society.

Despite my moaning, I can't say that I didn't enjoy this lovely work!