The Forgotten Garden

by Kate Morton
5 Stars
Setting: Australia, England
645 pages
Published 2008

Ellie's Review
This was a great book with an intriguing mystery about a foundling. Throughout the book, Morton carefully solves one part of the mystery while presenting other small mysteries. Readers are hooked! She jumps between three time frames without being confusing, which is a hard effect for authors though many try. I highly recommend this novel for a book club - readers love it and have a lot to discuss.

Book Summary
A foundling, an old book of dark fairy tales, a secret garden, an aristocratic family, a love denied, and a mystery. The Forgotten Garden is a captivating, atmospheric and compulsively readable story of the past, secrets, family and memory from the international best-selling author Kate Morton. 

See Ellie's reviews of Kate Morton's other novels: The House at Riverton and The Distant Hours.

Book Club Information
Click here to see a video of Kate Morton talking about The Forgotten Garden (no spoilers).


Discussion Questions

1. Christian said the following about “The Golden Egg” fairy tale, “The characters in the story are all doing what they think is right.  It’s just that it can’t have a happy ending for all of them.”  In The Forgotten Garden, who do you think had a happy ending?
2. Lady Montrechet convinces Eliza not to travel to New York with herself and Rose.  She convinces Eliza that lying to make someone happy is a good thing.  Do you agree?
3. Discuss what parts of Nell’s true story were never discovered by Cassandra.
4. Ruby said the following about not having children, “You make a life out of what you have not what you’re missing.”  Nell admits to herself she has focused too much on her missing late husband and child.  Who else focused on what was missing? 
5. Did Hugh and Lil make the right decision when they kept Nell? (question from katemorton.com)
6. On the night of Nell’s twenty-first birthday, her father Hugh tells her a secret that shatters her sense of self. How important is a strong sense of identity to a person’s life? Was Hugh right to tell her about her past? How might Nell’s life have turned out differently had she not discovered the truth? (question from katemorton.com)
7. Is it possible to escape the past, or does one’s history always find a way to revisit the present?  (question from katemorton.com)

Crone: The crone is a stock character in folklore and fairy tale, an old woman who is usually disagreeable, malicious, or sinister in manner, often with magical or supernatural associations that can make her either helpful or obstructing. She is marginalized by her exclusion from the reproductive cycle, and her proximity to death places her in contact with occult wisdom. As a character type, the crone shares characteristics with the hag.  The word "crone" is a less common synonym for "old woman," and is more likely to appear in reference to traditional narratives than in contemporary everyday usage. 

The House at Riverton

by Kate Morton
3 Stars
Setting: England
599 pages
Published 2006

Ellie's Review
I actually give this 3 1/2 stars. I enjoyed this 1920s novel set in England - it had some nice family and romantic parts in the plot as told by the maid. Even though the ending had a nice twist, the fact that a mysterious death is told about at the beginning and you find the true story out in the last few pages a bit cliche. It was very enjoyable and great to curl up with and read all in a weekend.

Book Summary
Summer 1924 - On the eve of a glittering society party, by the lake of a grand English country house, a young poet takes his life. The only witnesses, sisters Hannah and Emmeline Hartford, will never speak to each other again.

See Ellie's reviews of Kate Morton's later novels: The Forgotten Garden and The Distant Hours.

This was published in Europe under the title The Shifting Fog.

Click here to watch a 4-minute video of Kate Morton talking about The House at Riverton (no spoilers).

To Kill a Mockingbird

by Harper Lee
4 Stars
Classic, Historical Fiction
Setting: Alabama
323 pages
Published 1960

Ellie's Review
To Kill a Mockingbird is a great book about prejudice that was artfully written from the viewpoint of a child who knows no prejudice and learns the social customs and hatred our world has. I enjoyed it in high school and enjoyed it again as an adult who has experienced more. I hope to have the strength of the character Atticus in raising my children.

Book Summary
The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it, To Kill A Mockingbird became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was first published in 1960. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was later made into an Academy Award-winning film, also a classic.

East of Eden

by John Steinbeck
3 Stars
Classic, Historical Fiction
Setting: USA
601 pages
Published 1952

Ellie's Review
I almost gave East of Eden 4 stars. I did enjoy this book and the lessons of good and evil within us. Some of the descriptions were fabulous (Liza is "as humorless as a chicken"). However, I think Steinbeck added in things he could have cut out to make the book shorter. I was a bit confused as to why he had someone narrate it first-person in just a handful of sections; I kept waiting for that person's story to be told more.

Book Summary
The masterpiece of one of the greatest American writers of all time. East of Eden is an epic tale of good vs. evil with many biblical references and parallels. The story is ultimately that of good's triumph over evil and the human will's ability to make that happen.

Killer Weekend (Walt Fleming #1)

by Ridley Pearson
4 Stars
Setting: Sun Valley, Idaho
336 pages
Published 2007

Ellie's Review
If you're looking for a good murder mystery, try this out. This is the first book I've read of Pearson's, and I liked the main plot and was very interested in the subplots as well. This was a good page-turner, and I liked the ending.  Killer Weekend is a nice, entertaining read and is especially fun for anyone with an Idaho connection since novels aren't usually set there.

Book Summary
Eight years ago, in Sun Valley-snowcapped playground for the wealthy and ambitious-all that stood between U.S. Attorney General Elizabeth Shaler and a knife-wielding killer was local patrolman Walt Fleming. Now Liz Shaler returns to Sun Valley as the keynote speaker of billionaire Patrick Cutter's world-famous media and communications conference, a convergence of the richest, most powerful business tycoons. The controversial attorney general is expected to announce her candidacy for president. It's a media coup for Cutter-but a security nightmare for Walt Fleming, now the county sheriff. As the Cutter conference gets under way, authorities learn of a confirmed threat on Shaler's life, and various competing interests-the Secret Service, the FBI, Cutter's own security forces -begin jockeying for jurisdiction. Amid the conference's opulent extravagances, Walt is suddenly shaken by an apparent murder, his nephew's arrest, and a haunting legacy from his family's past. The clock ticks down toward Shaler's keynote address as we track the chilling precision of her assassin's preparations.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

by Jamie Ford
4 Stars
Historical Fiction, WWII
Setting: Seattle
304 pages
Published 2009

Ellie's Review
This book was a fascinating read about the Japanese internment - I learned so much. However, this book was also a wonderful love story and a novel about father/son relationships. At times, the writing didn't flow that well, but I still really liked the book.

Book Summary
In 1986, Henry lee joins a crowd outside the Panama Hotel, once the gateway to Seattle's Japantown. It has been boarded up for decades, but now the new owner has discovered the belongings of Japanese families who were sent to internment camps during World War II. As the owner displays and unfurls a Japanese parasol, Henry, a Chinese American, remembers a young Japanese girl from his childhood in the 1940s -- Keiko Okabe, with whom he forged a bond of friendship and innocent love that transcended the prejudices of their Old World ancestors. After Keiko and her family were evacuated to the internment camps, she and Henry could only hope that their promise to each other would be kept. Now, forty years later, Henry explores the hotel's basement for the Okabe family's belongings and for a long-lost object whose value he cannot even begin to measure. His search will take him on a journey to revisit the sacrifices he has made for family, for love, for country.

Change Your Thoughts - Change Your Life: Living the Wisdom of the Tao

by Wayne W. Dyer
5 Stars
Nonfiction: Self Help
416 pages
Published 2007

Ellie's Review
This is an amazing book! Split into sections for every verse in the Tao Te Ching, Wayne Dyer gives his interpretation of the verse and suggests how to apply it to your daily life. I read one verse a day so the meaning could sink in. I can honestly say this book has changed my life and helped me be more at peace. Regardless of your religious beliefs, I think you could benefit from this book. The world would be a much better place if everyone read this!

Book Summary
Five hundred years before the birth of Jesus, a God-realized being named Lao-tzu in ancient China dictated 81 verses, which are regarded by many as the ultimate commentary on the nature of our existence. The classic text of these 81 verses, called the Tao Te Ching or the Great Way, offers advice and guidance that is balanced, moral, spiritual, and always concerned with working for the good.In this book, Dr. Wayne W. Dyer has reviewed hundreds of translations of the Tao Te Ching and has written 81 distinct essays on how to apply the ancient wisdom of Lao-tzu to today’s modern world. This work contains the entire 81 verses of the Tao, compiled from Wayne’s researching of 12 of the most well-respected translations of text that have survived for more than 25 centuries. Each chapter is designed for actually living the Tao or the Great Way today. Some of the chapter titles are “Living with Flexibility,” “Living Without Enemies,” and “Living by Letting Go.” Each of the 81 brief chapters focuses on living the Tao and concludes with a section called “Doing the Tao Now.”Wayne spent one entire year reading, researching, and meditating on Lao-tzu’s messages, practicing them each day and ultimately writing down these essays as he felt Lao-tzu wanted you to know them.This is a work to be read slowly, one essay a day. As Wayne says, “This is a book that will forever change the way you look at your life, and the result will be that you’ll live in a new world aligned with nature. Writing this book changed me forever, too. I now live in accord with the natural world and feel the greatest sense of peace I’ve ever experienced. I’m so proud to present this interpretation of the Tao Te Ching, and offer the same opportunity for change that it has brought me.”