August Book Club: The Forgotten Garden

Last night my book club, Ladies, Literature and Libations met to discuss a very inspiring and touching book. We read The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton and it was definitely a page turned.

“In 1913, a little girl arrives in Brisbane, Australia, and is taken in by a dockmaster and his wife. She doesn’t know her name, and the only clue to her identity is a book of fairy tales tucked inside a white suitcase. When the girl, called Nell, grows up, she starts to piece together bits of her story, but just as she’s on the verge of going to England to trace the mystery to its source, her grandaughter, Cassandra, is left in her care. When Nell dies, Cassandra finds herself the owner of a cottage in Cornwall, and makes the journey to England to finally solve the puzzle of Nell’s origins. Shifting back and forth over a span of nearly 100 years, this is a sprawling, old-fashioned novel, as well-cushioned as a Victorian country house, replete with family secrets, stories-within-stories, even a maze and a Dickensian rag-and-bone shop. All the pieces don’t quite mesh, but it’s a satisfying read overall, just the thing for readers who like multigenerational sagas with a touch of mystery.”

I love to read historical fiction and really enjoy books that are told from the voice of multiple characters. Each chapter highlighted a character and you could feel the theme of the book change through each chapter yet the book still flowed through and the story was very strong. This is a pretty long book but worth the time commitment!

I find my book club very inspiring, it is a great group of woman of all ages and we actually talk about the book (shocking I know) and it always ends up into some very serious discussions. Last night we were drawing parallels between the main character and how an adopted person might feel reading the book. Turns out, one of the woman in the group is adopted and we talked about how the character made her feel and how she had reacted when her own mother told her that she was adopted. I feel very lucky to have such intelligent and well read woman in my life