by Kate Morton

**Spoilers**

Why did I read this book? Because of all of the great reviews. Because it sounded really good. Because I wanted to try something by this highly touted author. Because the cover was really pretty and the title intriguing (although the picture on my copy had nothing to do with the garden in the story.) Because I wanted to read something a little different and it had been quite a long time that I had read any multi-generational or otherwise sweeping family dramas. It was a genre that I used to enjoy a lot. And because it became available in a timely manner from my library waiting list. After reading about a quarter of the book and realizing that I didn’t particularly like or care about 2 of the 3 main characters, why did I keep reading? No idea. I guess the “big mysteries” kept me going, hoping for a shocking twist, a mind-blowing reveal, and satisfying justice for the evil doers and just reward for the good people.

The two main characters that left me cold were Nell and her granddaughter, Cassandra. Most of Nell’s story takes place in 1975 when she is in her mid-sixties. We learn that she was a delightful child and a lovely young woman whose life took a turn when her beloved father told her she was adopted. He had found her abandoned on the dock where he was port-master in Brisbane Australia, when she was only 4. When no one claimed her, he raised her as his own with his nice but sickly wife and his other children. She is so devastated by this news that her life is forever blighted. Or rather, she chooses to turn her back on her loving family emotionally, dump her adored fiance, and turn into a dried-up old stick, a terrible mother, and full of self-hatred. She has vague memories of being loved and cherished before ending up abandoned on a ship, and of the woman who took her there whom she only remembers as “The Authoress”.

When the old bat dies she leaves a cottage in Cornwall England to her granddaughter Cassandra, whom she raised, along with a fairy tale book. Nell had gone to England in 1975 right before Cassandra had come to live with her and had been on the verge of discovering her origins. She had to go home to Brisbane and was not able to return because her daughter left her granddaughter almost literally on her doorstep for her to raise. After her grandmother dies in 2005, Cassandra decides to go to Cornwall and continue Nell’s quest for the truth. The cottage is on the grounds of a great estate by the sea that Nell had learned her bio parents were heirs to. Cassandra is a lonely young widow whose husband and child were killed 10 years ago in a tragic accident. She is a good sort, but grew to be as dull and boring as she could be. It was not engaging to spend probably about 75% of the book with one unpleasant senior citizen and one almost middle-aged woman without a lick of spirit or humor.

The other main character is Eliza. She is the daughter of Georgiana, the daughter of the owners of Blackhurst, the great estate that Nell’s little cottage is on. Georgiana eloped with a sailor and fled her home from an evil so great that she chose to raise her daughter in a London tenement rather than return home when her husband was killed. Her daughter is a brave, intelligent, creative, and spirited girl who loves to tell stories. Her, I liked. Orphaned, she is tracked down and “rescued” from abject poverty in London to go and live with her mother’s family at Blackhurst. Although she is no longer destitute, her family is menacing and hateful. Nevertheless, she makes friends with Rose, the spoiled daughter of the house, and they are devoted to each other. We learn that Eliza grows up to be “The Authoress” that Nell remembers from her toddlerhood.

Although Nell thinks she has uncovered the mystery of her mother and father, she is still in the dark as to why The Authoress abandoned her on a ship bound for Australia. Of course, the reader suspects, since this is a mystery, that all may not be as it appears. The reader would be right. I had guessed pretty early on what the mystery of Nell’s parentage was, although there was a red herring that threw me off for a minute. We don’t learn until the end why Eliza abandoned Rose on the ship. But when we do, it throws her whole story in the toilet. Or let’s say that it flushed the toilet that her story had already been thrown into. The one truly positive and admirable character of all three main protagonists had already been damaged in my eyes by both her decisions and her slavish and unaccountable devotion to Rose. I felt sorry for Rose, sometimes, but I was very put off by her. She was not a good person. I will say that the antagonists and the evil characters, though cartoonish, were successfully crafted. Rose was very complex.

The theme of this book is not to embroil yourself in the past but to move forward through challenges and the bad things and look forward toward the future.
“You make a life out of what you have, not what you’re missing.”
Nell ruined her life, and made her loved ones victims as well, by letting her knowledge of her abandonment rule her life. What made it worse was the knowledge that so many good people had sacrificed so much because of her. It was a waste. But in her 60s she forsook her search for her past to raise her granddaughter, Cassandra. She finally became a successful worthwhile person because of that. In taking up the search where Nell left off, in Cornwall, Cassandra leaves her grief over her dead husband and child behind and finds friends, a purpose, and a new love. The cautionary tale is provided by Eliza who leaves her child and her future dreams on a ship bound for Australia to revisit her childhood hovel and retrieve a “legacy” hidden there by her long-dead mother. The consequence of that little detour was a severe punishment indeed. So two main characters with whom spending time was tedious, and a tragic and disappointing ending for the good one. I held out hope for this book to the end, and a great ending could have saved it. But it was not to be.