The Distant Hours by Kate Morton

Kate Morton is one of my favorites. She writes big fat books with well developed characters.  The setting is usually in Australia, England or both.  She deftly weaves a story leaving you satisfied with ending.  Well….most of the time.  She wraps up the mysteries so you have definite conclusions.  Perhaps you don’t like how some characters end up but nothing is ever left hanging.

In 1992, letters written in 1941 were found stowed away in an attic.  The post man placed the bag of letters and bills in his home and they weren’t discovered until his death in 1992.   Imagine a letter delivered 50 years later, the recipient having no ability to respond, lives possibly changed because those communications were adrift.  Meredith Burchill is one of the recipients of a letter written 50 years prior by glamorous Juniper Blythe.  Merdith’s daughter Edie watches her mother open the letter then break into tears, obviously distraught.

Edie Burchill, a character whom I  instantly liked.  This is yet another book where one of our characters is a book editor ( an aspiration I had when I was in my teens). Edie ends up moving back home when her lease is up in her Notting Hill flat.

Edie’s mother Meredith is a fussy old thing but she has a very interesting back story. She was an evacuee from London during the war, living in Mildhurst Castle far in the north of England, with the Blythe sisters, three elegant and classy ladies.   The three sisters were very different from another. Persephone and Seraphina are twins but they didn’t have the same passions or goals.  The head of the household is Raymond Blythe.  He is a famous author of The Secrets of the Mudman.  When you find the evil inspiration for his story….well, I found it disturbing. Juniper Blythe is the golden haired youngest who picks Meredith as “her evacuee” during the war.  They become friends during the billeting, this changing the lives of both.

I made this sound boring but it’s hard to include all the relationship quirks and why they are important.  The seduction of this novel, for me, is the old castle and mystery of the origins of the Mudman story. The setting in northern England in WW II, the food mentions are scant but there is of course tea, rock cakes and roasted meat dinners. This was the only one of Morton’s books I hadn’t read so now…..waiting for a few years for her next tome.  This wasn’t my favorite, I loved The Forgotten Garden and The Secret Keeper the most of the six books published. Overall a good story with a few surprises at the end.

Linking with Joy for British Isles Friday and to Booklover Reviews for the Aussie Author Challenge.

 

 

 

The Fragments by Toni Jordan

This is a literary mystery set primarily in Brisbane Australia.  The genre and locale hooked me right away so I promptly requested a copy from NetGalley.

Imagine a famous author who publishes a ground breaking literary masterpiece, one people talk about and analyze over the years.  The author has another book about to published, people eagerly awaiting the story, when a horrific tragedy strikes. The author dies in a warehouse fire, the flames destroying all copies of the latest book.  Only fragments are recovered and her mourning fans and scholars are left with scraps of sentences, forever wondering about this lost masterpiece.   That is the story of Inga Karlson, the author who became a legend.

The fragments of her manuscript along with photos of Inga and her personal belongings are exhibited around the world for decades.  Loyal fans and scholars line up to view this exhibit, some of the devotees young enough to be Inga’s grandchildren.  She is epic.

Cadence “Caddie” Walker’s obsession with Inga Karlson’s lost manuscript has her standing in line in the blazing Brisbane heat, awaiting the opening of the exhibition so she may view this collection.  In line near Caddie is an old woman named Rachel Lehrer.  She speaks with Caddie, asking what her favorite lines were from the scraps left of the book.  In return, Rachel “quotes” this sentence fragment of the unpublished book.

And in the end, all we have are the hours and the days, the minutes and the way we bear them, the seconds spent on this earth and the number of them that truly mattered.

But that last part wasn’t written anywhere.  Is it the imaginary conjuring of an old woman?

The book is divided in three parts.  I thought the first part had a few slow spots, certainly not enough for me to abandon the book.   I was very intrigued with the perspective back in the 1930’s about Rachel Lehrer and her family.  When the story took that reminiscing turn to the past I was completely engaged.  It hops with a fluid transition from 1986 and Caddie Walker’s obsession to the 1930’s story line.  You don’t see what one has to do with another until part two of the book. Then the puzzle connects.

Nearing the end of part two I was on the fence regarding my feelings for Caddie.  She was about to take up with someone I know isn’t a good person; someone who will use her up. I’m torn with the entwining stories of Rachel and Inga in the past and the Caddie/Jamie/Philip mess in the 1980’s.  Caddie needs to be shaken by the shoulders as I, the reader, clearly knows what needs to be done here!

There is mystery, love, a snapshot of domestic violence in the 1930 era and a satisfying conclusion to the story.  Also, a surprise about several characters in part three of the book.  I would like to know what became of  a few supporting characters but there certainly was a clear resolution.  I would read more by this author.

Adventurous setting for me, Kookaburra and Queensland and Brisbane……I am armchair traveling again.

Food stuff:  Chili Lentil Soup, pizzas of Margherita and vegetarian varieties, sundaes, cakes, chicken a la King.

Linking up with the 2019 Aussie Author Challenge,   Girlxoxo for the Monthly Motif and Heather for April Foodies Read.

Thank you very much  Netgalley for this digital copy of the book. I received this complimentary copy and was not compensated for my opinion/review.

Into the Night by Sarah Bailey

Fractured relationships abound in this novel, the second book in the Gemma Woodstock series.

We have a murdered homeless man, elderly and kind, knifed in the early hours of the morning.  Gemma is not assigned lead detective on this case so straight away we can see her mopey side.  Next murder is a high profile case.  A good looking young actor, Sterling Wade, is killed on the set of a movie being filmed locally in Melbourne.  This will take priority as it’s a media nightmare.  Gemma is lead on this one but descriptions of her personality don’t exactly have her leaping off the page.

In the first book, The Dark Lake, she was a lead detective in a rural town in Australia.  Gemma transferred to another detective position in busy Melbourne after her relationship with her partner Scott fails.  She leaves her young son Ben with Scott and has issues with the separation yet doesn’t seem to want custody, only visits. It’s a good transition from book one to this story.

In my opinion, Gemma Woodstock’s personal issues detracted from this story. You do want a little bit of the personal side of your main character, that’s one of the things I like about the DCI Banks series, but Gemma’s internal turmoil could have been toned down.  I was actually warming more to her partner Nick Fleet, incorrigible as he is. Hoping he shows up in the next book and we get more information about his back story.

If you like multiple story lines with more than one murder investigation then you will enjoy that aspect of the book.  Hoping Gemma conquers her many demons and becomes confident and energetic.  We need some flaws in our main characters but Gemma’s issues are legend.

Much thanks to NetGalley for this advanced copy. Opinions are mine and I was not compensated for the review. This book was published in December 2018.

Sharing with the Aussie Reading Challenge and Girlxoxo for January’s Monthly Motif.

The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton {Aussie Book Challenge}

In this epic book by Australian author Kate Morton we are transported back and forth from present day (2011) to WW II London as two stories merge. Laurel Nicholson is a very successful English actress and she is our main narrator.

We open with Laurel in the year 1961. She is a teenager, daydreaming about escaping her life in the English countryside. She sits in a tree house thinking about her boyfriend while the festivities for a birthday party are starting to get underway. Laurel is the oldest with three younger sisters and one little brother, Gerry. Their mother Dorothy is a wonderful woman., a loving mother and creative storyteller. It’s Gerry’s second birthday party and the family tradition is to cut the cake with a very special knife, red ribbon attached.

From her tree house perch Laurel sees her mother walk toward the house, little Gerry balanced on her hip, as she retrieves the special birthday cake knife. She also notices a man walking up to their rural home, an unusual thing as they don’t get many visitors. As he approaches Dorothy she witnesses her mother look fearful, place the baby behind her in the gravel path, as the man greets her by name. “Hello Dorothy….” Her mother then lifts the knife and plunges it into the man’s chest without any hesitation.

Gerry remains on the ground wailing. Laurel is naturally shocked. No one else sees what happened. The police are called and it’s determined the man was a tramp who had been bothering picnickers recently, clearly a dangerous fellow. But Laurel knows there is more to it as the man addressed her mother by name.

2011: All the siblings, now grown and middle aged plus, gather at their childhood home for their mother’s 90th birthday. It will clearly be the last one as Dorothy is dying. Laurel knows this will be the only opportunity to discover what happened with her mother and the man she killed so many years ago. Dorothy had asked for an old book to be retrieved so she could look at it and within is an old photograph tucked away. The photo depicts two beautiful young women with the inscription Dorothy and Vivian, something that clearly agitates elderly Dorothy. No one has ever heard her speak of a woman named Vivian so there is another mystery. As she gets her mother talking Laurel is given bits of information to research and discover who her mother was and what her life was like before. She’s in for a surprise.

Dorothy’s story is told from multiple perspectives during the WW II era in London. We are introduced to Jimmy Metcalfe and Vivian Jenkins, key characters in this vividly painted story.

The last 20 or so pages bring all the mysteries into play and it’s a very cool ending ( In my opinion). I love Kate Morton books and have read The House at Riverton, The Lake House and The Forgotten Garden. All wonderful stories with mystery throughout and a twisty endings. I love being transported to other countries as it’s armchair traveling for me at this time.

Linking up with Joy’s Book Blog for her British Isles Friday series as this book was partially set in England.  Also, this is the last book for my Aussie Reader’s Challenge and I hope to join in again next year and discover more Australian authors. I completed the Wallaby level.

For the challenge I have read:

The Dry by Jane Harper
The Boy at the Keyhole by Stephen Giles
The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton