A Gem Hidden on a Shelf

Sometimes just browsing the shelves at a library will unlock treasures you never knew existed. That seems to be a common theme on my blog, but those are some of the truest words I have ever well... written I guess. Every book is a story waiting to be told behind its covers. And if you wander the shelves of an old library you might find a story that will stay in your memory for ever.

The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton is one of those stories. I fell upon it randomly at the library and decided to take it home with me. The story is told by many points of view, in many time periods and places from present day Australia to before the turn of last century London. It hops place and time in every segment and can sometimes be very confusing, however by the end of the first part the characters have become family and the mystery they are trying to unravel your own.

The premise is about a little girl, at about the age of four, found alone with a suitcase on a dock in Australia in 1913. The man that runs the wharf takes her home and ends up adopting her, but not telling her that she is not the biological child of himself and his wife until she is 21. And at the age of 65 she is given the suitcase she is found with. Nell, that is the woman's name, goes on an adventure to find out who she really is but dies without truly finding out. But her granddaughter Cassandra continues the search, and take the reader on a crazy journey where you can never quite predict the out come.

The Forgotten Garden is truly a work of literary genius, and I am really surprised it doesn't have more of a following. The story is complex and weaves together like hair in a braid. As Cassandra discovers more about her heritage the reader does also but by reading about it as it "actually happens." My dad had to make me go to bed one night because I just could not put it down. I can't wait to read more works by Kate Morton and I urge you all to go and pick up a copy of The Forgotten Garden, it is worth buying. Its a story that I will read again and again over the years and give copies of to my friends so that they can enjoy the story as well.