The House at Riverton

The House at Riverton by Kate Morton
Paperback: 496 pages
Publisher: Washington Square Press(March 3, 2009)
ISBN-10: 1416550534

Amazon.com Review

Amazon Best of the Month, April 2008: In her cinematic debut novel, Kate Morton immerses readers in the dramas of the Ashbury family at their crumbling English country estate in the years surrounding World War I, an age when Edwardian civility, shaken by war, unravels into the roaring Twenties. Grace came to serve in the house as a girl. She left as a young woman, after the presumed suicide of a famous young poet at the property's lake. Though she has dutifully kept the family's secrets for decades, memories flood back in the twilight of her life when a young filmmaker comes calling with questions about how the poet really died--and why the Ashbury sisters never again spoke to each other afterward. With beautifully crafted prose, Morton methodically reveals how passion and fate transpired that night at the lake, with truly shocking results. Her final revelation at the story's close packs a satisfying (and not overly sentimental) emotional punch.
I read this book about 2 years ago.. I can't say I was overly thrilled with it but then I had just come off of reading The Thirteenth Tale which I loved, loved, loved.   So I gave the books a second chance when I found it for .50 cents.
This time I like it a lot better.  It still doesn't live up to The Thirteenth Tale but I did like it better and I liked both of her other books since this one... (another reason I have it a second chance)
It's a tale of secrets that people in the service of the rich learned to keep.  A house with a family filled with secrets.  There were secrets of paternity, of love  and feelings of failure and disappointment and even a sub story of a love story that made me smile in the end.
All of it told by the elderly maid, Grace.  The story was mainly about the family that lived at Riverton, but it was also Grace's story.  How at 14 she began working at Riverton and worked her way up to being a personal maid to Hannah, the oldest daughter of the house.
Over years secrets were kept and secrets were discovered... and in the end Grace passes on those secrets ... but you will have to read it to find out what the secrets are and who they got passed on to.
I guess what I learned most was that it's really hard to give a book my full attention when coming off of one of those rare, but extremely special, reading experience that one gets now and then. You know, one of those that you can't say enough about and keep telling everyone that they have to read it... yeah those books.
So I am glad I gave this book a second chance.. it's a good read.  There are secrets to be learned while reliving old England in a time when the rich were the rich and the servants were rarely anything but servants.
I look forward to Kate Morton's next book, whatever it is.