The House at Riverton by Kate Morton

Was this similar to The Forgotten Garden or not? I can't decide. They both move back and forth over many years. In both there is a secret which is only exposed on the last page (approximately), but this one doesn't really give the sense of a mystery to be solved: Grace knows the truth all along. Of course, there are secrets and secrets within secrets all through the story: the secret of Grace's identity and the unacknowledged fact that Ursula's grandmother is Hannah's daughter for starters, although neither of those has much bearing on the story.

The secret that brings about the disastrous conclusion seems very trivial - Grace, as a young housemaid, allows Hannah, the teenaged daughter of the house, to believe that they shared a secret ambition for office work and both knew shorthand. Personally, I think that was a rather weak device to precipitate the tragic conclusion. Why, ten years later, would Hannah write a note to Grace in shorthand? Just a little lame. Logically, she would have taken Grace into her confidence earlier. In fact, she would have needed Grace to facilitate her plans.

It also seemed very improbable that a young woman whose education ended before she was fourteen would leave her destined career in "service" and go get a PhD in archaeology. Unnecessary as well as improbable because it does not have any impact on the plot.

Frankly, the events - as they are supposed to have occurred or as Grace knows they actually did - seem rather ordinary to be such a legendary tragedy that they bring an American filmmaker to try to recreate them.

I do like very much the ghosts that Grace has discussions with when she returns to Riverton. They are handled very matter-of-factly. It reminded me of conversations that I had with my own grandmother in the months before she died. She often told me about talks that she had with her sister - who had been dead for a number of years. I believe that Katherine did come and visit with her, partly because Katherine is not the person that I would have expected Grandmother to summon. If Grandmother was going to imagine a visit from someone already dead, it would have been either my grandfather or her other sister.

Aside from that, my first impression was that this was very slow moving compared to The Forgotten Garden, but I'm not sure that impression is completely valid. It read very quickly, and I was never tempted to put it aside and get back to my other book.