Have you read ... Kate Morton?

    I've just begun Kate Morton's The Distant Hours, and it's a promising start of the 'missing letter/decaying country house/eccentric sisters' type. Our heroine has happened upon Milderhurst Castle, home to the elderly Blythe sisters whose father Raymond wrote the children's gothic classic The True History of the Mud Man which sparked Edie's love of books and her career in publishing. The castle is the place to which Edie's mother was evacuated during the war, and one of its occupants wrote a letter to her in those days, a letter which has just turned up, discovered - undelivered - in an attic after fifty years. Edie is about to visit Milderhurst, but what will she find there?

    I'm looking forward to reading on, and this is the first Kate Morton for me - despite the enormous success of her earlier novels The House at Riverton and The Forgotten Garden (that title alone is enough to get my attention, and those covers with the gates, well....!) I haven't read them.  Have you?

Comments

[Anne]

Oh Yes . I have read both earlier novels. I did enjoy them. Think I was on holiday when I read them both.

[Jo]

I have read the earlier two novels and thoroughly enjoyed them. Really got stuck in as they are nice chunky books, if you know what I mean!

I have Distant Hours on my shelf waiting to be read but have yet to pick it up. I am hoping it is as good as the others and from the premise and what you have said it does!

Happy reading.

[Audrey]

No, I haven't...but I've been hearing about them and I'm intrigued.

[Karen]

I have read all 3 but my favourite by far is the first one - The House at Riverton (or The Shifting Fog as it is titled in Australia).

[Cornflower]

Karen, I didn't know it had a different title in Australia. Interesting how covers and titles can change according to country of publication.

[Susan in TX]

I haven't gotten to these yet, but I keep hearing great things about them.

[Anna]

I quite liked The Forgotten Garden. Very pleasantly convoluted.

[Linda C.]

I read The Distant Hours some months ago and really liked it.

[efi]

i have read the Forgotten Garden.i liked it very much.

[Margaret Powling]

I have read The Forgotten Garden and The House at Riverton, and I bought the hardback (rash!) of The Distant Hours in the hopes that I would love it just as much, but somehow I wasn't enjoying reading about those very odd sisters and therefore it's still only 1/3rd read and sitting, gathering dust, on the TBR pile!
Re this new genre, which instead of a saga I think it should now be re-named 'the gateway novel' because these gates open vistas in the past (oh, come on, Margaret, they're just book covers!) gates are also on the covers of: Rachel Hore's A Place of Secrets (her books are similr to those of Kate Morton); Lucie Whitehouse's The House at Midnight (on the TBR pile); Mary Nichols' The Summer House; and an almost-gateway (an arch) on Lucinda Riley's Hothouse Flower (just read and very much enjoyed.)

[Coffee and a Book Chick]

I've only read The House at Riverton and I absolutely, absolutely enjoyed the haunting and Gothic feel to it. I do need to pick up the other two she's written thus far, but I think (speaking of covers) that The Forgotten Garden cover looks a bit too "sunshine and flowers" for the dark reads her works tend to be. I prefer more of the muted and darker colors - seems to just fit better with her dark themes.

[Erika]

I have read all three and while I enjoyed them I haven't recommended them to anyone else. They all seem to fall a little short of my expectations and those of their blurbs. They are clunky and wordy and this gets in the way of the interesting plot ideas.

[Cornflower]

"Very pleasantly convoluted" is a great description, Anna!

[Simon T]

I loved the covers, I bought the first one (new, as well!) and... haven't read anything by her. Don't know why. The length of the books might have something to do with it...

[Julie Fredericksen]

A couple of years ago I was in Barnes & Noble with a $25.00 birthday gift card burning a hole in my pocket. Then I spied the gorgeous hardcover edition of "The Forgotten Garden." I have been hooked on her ever since. I have also read "The House at Riverton" and just received "The Distant Hours" the other day. Having just finished "South Reading" (wonderful!) this evening, maybe I should pick up "The Distant Hours" for my next read.

[Julie Fredericksen]

The hardcover of "The Forgotten Garden" has autumny colors and features some bare trees as well.