The House at Riverton (2006)

Wonderful! Great characters and engaging tale; and beautifully descriptive writing that made reading the book like watching a movie. It kept me up all night because I couldn't put it down.

The author was inspired by Rebecca and Atonement, among others, and Agatha Christie makes an appearance. It also reminded me of Gosford Park, and the author says she loves Cate Blanchett and Kate Winslet. That just hits all the right buttons for me :)

The only downside was that I'm not convinced why that shot was fired...which is rather crucial to the story :p Still, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of reading the tale. I will definitely look for more of Morton's works. ( )

What to day and which rating to give?
I did enjoy reading this book but did not like the little bits we got about Grace her life as it was now. As someone else mentioned, if she wanted to do that, give us more about how Grace transformed from a maid who loved to serve, to a very independent woman.

The story was told very slowly but this author has such an interesting way of telling it, I enjoyed it.
It felt annoying that both 2 main characters were very accepting of what happened to them in their lives. Not the right word, submissive is better. Like Hannah who lets Deborah rule her life, and Grace who chooses for Hannah to rule hers in a way.
3.5 ( )

Was it just me, or do others feel a bit of Titanic nostalgia? I couldn't help but make the comparison throughout the story. Older woman, retelling stories of her youth in her final days??? Oh come on...say I'm not the only one!!!

Titanic aside, I was intrigued by the storyline at first, who wouldn't? There's a suicide witnessed by two society women? Secrets seem to be definitely in place...

However, the intrigue ultimately fell short for me. I found that I would have liked to have gotten deeper into the characters than Morton allowed. I saw so many of them as being interesting and complicated, but stopped short of a fantastic description. It wasn't that she was giving hints about an underlying tone, I just didn't connect with them. I can't put my finger on it exactly - the storyline just seemed a little disjointed for my liking.

It's more than a 3 rating in my book, but not high enough to rate it a 4. However, I am inclined to try other books by Morton based on other reviews of this book. Stay tuned! ( )

Finally finished! It was a long book, but a wonderful,sad story. ( )

I think I enjoyed this a little more than [b:The Forgotten Garden|6723017|The Forgotten Garden|Kate Morton|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1291758121s/6723017.jpg|3448086], but mostly because I love Downton Abbey.

I felt like I wanted to read this as it was happening and not jumping back and forth between 1999 and the hey day of Riverton. But in the end I think it was the right way to do it. I think it just bothers me because this seems to be the author's style as Garden was similar. ( )