Why we chose Kate Morton’s The Forgotten Garden

Mom spotted this book while browsing at a local bookstore and thought it sounded interesting. I had no opinion on this book and went along with Mom’s suggestion 😛 The title intrigued both of us!

Cassandra is lost, alone and grieving. Her much loved grandmother, Nell, has just died and Cassandra, her life already shaken by a tragic accident ten years ago, feels like she has lost everything dear to her. But an unexpected and mysterious bequest from Nell turns Cassandra’s life upside down and ends up challenging everything she thought she knew about herself and her family.

Inheriting a book of dark and intriguing fairytales written by Eliza Makepeace—the Victorian authoress who disappeared mysteriously in the early twentieth century—Cassandra takes her courage in both hands to follow in the footsteps of Nell on a quest to find out the truth about their history, their family and their past; little knowing that in the process, she will also discover a new life for herself.

Our Discussion

Mom gives this book ★★★★ and I give it ★★½ . In this case, these readings are a clear indicator of our personal taste ,rather than a judgement on the quality of the book.

We began our discussion with the characters. Mom particularly liked them because she felt she was right there in the story, walking alongside them – not just reading a story but being totally immersed in it. She wouldn’t mind spending time with Cassandra et al. in real life. She pointed to Cassandra as a favourite character. I admitted that I thought Cassandra was a bit dull. She doesn’t have much of a personality; she just puts everything together. Mom explained that that was why she liked Cassandra – without Cassandra doing all the investigative work, there would be no story. No one would know why what happened to Nell happened. Cassandra may not have been an integral part of the storyline, but she enabled the story to come together. It’s okay if she’s a bit dull because it’s not really a story about her.  I felt that the Morton tried to make Cassandra more interesting by giving her this tragic backstory that we don’t really get a lot of and hinting at a future romance, but I felt like that was unsuccessful. Mom and I agreed that Cassandra didn’t need to be a fascinating character – there was enough of that in the story she was sharing with us!

I’ve discovered I despise the word authoress. neither Mom nor I had encountered it before. A Google search suggests its usage peaked in the 1850s and has declined since then. I don’t have a problem with, for example, actress, but something about how authoress sounds grates on me.

We took a look at some of the book club discussion questions but weren’t very impressed with them (too easy, too plain). One question was did Nell’s adoptive parents make the right decision to keep her.  Well, with the hindsight of reading the book, you can obviously say yes!  It’s not much of a a relevant/interesting question once you’ve read the book…

Part way through The Forgotten Garden, I figured out why I don’t like these types of mysteries. I like ‘mysteries’ better when they are a surprise or a twist or a slow reveal (‘Something’s off, but what?’), not deliberately building up to ‘What could it be? How will we solve this unknown?’ I also felt this book was very predictable, for the most part. Mom doesn’t mind knowing the end point of the story (she also figured it out pretty quickly) but she likes the journey of how the characters get to that point. She doesn’t really consider The Forgotten Garden a mystery. This tied back in to our discussion above about characters – Mom likes Cassandra because she’s the one who does all the work to put the story together.

The last thing we discussed was the titular garden. Mom wished there was more detail about the garden. The book is called The Forgotten Garden. I kind of forgot the garden was supposed to be significant, given the title. The story takes a long time to come around to its significance. it doesn’t feel like it plays a major role in the story – more of a background role. Mom would like more emphasis on what the garden represented. We felt like it was glossed over.  When you think of the plot, you might think “Oh, that garden is pretty important” but you don’t really read about it a lot.  We contrasted it with our previous read, The Cottingley Secret, where the fairy photographs were integral to the story and well-depicted.

 Final Thoughts

We both had similar opinions on this book as we did The Cottingley Secret.  Do you like multi-generational family stories? What about historical fiction that centers women’s stories?