The Clockmaker’s Daughter by Kate Morton 496 pages
I love Kate Morton novels. They are nice and thick with a mystery that spans generations. I love to snuggle down in my favorite reading chair. I waited until October to read her latest, mainly because of the opening sentence: “We came to Birchwood Manor because Edward said it was haunted.” What a perfect line for late fall with Halloween just weeks away! And one sentence in the dustjacket blurb (“Tensions simmer, and one hot afternoon a gunshot rings out.”). I was ready to stay up all night, expecting to be so engrossed I couldn’t stop reading.
As I read further into Chapter 1, I was
thrilled to discover that one of the narrators was a ghost. How cool was that!? The ghost was not
identified nor was its paragraphs, but those were easily discernible.
The first part of the book took place in 2017, when archivist Elodie Winslow discovered a satchel and sketch pad belonging to 19th century artist Edward Radcliff. Part One was wonderful.
But then I reached Part 2. The ghost was still there, but new characters appeared. I had no idea what was going on. Yet I read, and read, and read. But to my disappointment, it didn’t make sense. It was like a different story set in the same place.
It took me another week to finish this novel. It did comeback around, but by then I was so confused about Morton’s plotlines, that I turned the last page in utter disappointment. Well, all writers have one book that is a dud, and this is it for Morton. Fingers crossed that her next one will live up to her talent.
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