Castlegar Library has a number of features set up to attract the reader. For example, the library has created a spot for readers to place those books they have just read and think are quite special — the “wow” section.
I don’t know who controls the “wow” section. I suspect the librarians take turns placing their favourite books there. Possibly a reader will praise a particular book, and then it might be selected for this “wow” area. If it ends up in the “wow” area, then it earns a “wow” sticker.
Supposedly, these books are so first-rate that anyone can choose from this gathering and have a good read, too. However, I’ve discovered that tastes in books really differ. What one reader is ecstatic about might require quite a few yawns for the next reader. I’ve found “so-so” books in this section, but I’ve also been “wowed” by a few I’ve taken home.
Case in point — a while back I took a look at a “wow” novel called The House at Riverton by Kate Morton. I scanned the book for some time as I was intrigued that a young Australian writer would be writing about English life at the turn of the 20th century. In addition, I got caught up in the story of an aristocratic family on an English estate complete with servants — an echo of Downton Abbey of TV fame.
It didn’t take me long to get entangled in the novel’s intrigues. Written from the point of view of an elderly woman who has been asked to remember her life as a servant girl at Riverton Manor in the long-gone past, this book quickly seduces the reader. As the servant girl named Grace recalls the chilling incidents and deep secrets of the family she serves, we learn that her own life is enshrouded in a secret from the past.
The House at Riverton is a long novel, but it has enough intrigue in every chapter to keep the reader involved. Whoever chose this slightly-historical novel for the “wow” table chose correctly.
That experience with Kate Morton’s debut novel led me to her second novel, The Forgotten Garden. It is an excellent narrative and likely deserves to be on the “wow” list. It takes place in both Australia and England and switches the story-teller several times.
I was struck with the brilliance of this story right from the beginning. A female child is plunked down on a dock in Australia with no one accompanying her from the ship and no one to meet her. How did she get there from England and what was her English life like? The novel does answer these questions, but only after we learn about her life in Australia.
Initially, the port-master takes pity on the little girl, takes her home to his family, and names her Nell. She is brought up there and as she grows up, she loses any sense of having been a child from another land. Her port-master father, however, decides that on the eve of her wedding, she must know about her past. After being let into the secret of her past, Nell gives up on her marriage and eventually returns to England to discover her former identity.
Indeed, she discovers bits of information about her former family and her former home. She even purchases one of the places she once lived in with its secret or “forgotten” garden. It remains, however, for her granddaughter Cassandra to follow in her granny’s footsteps and unearth all the secrets.
I’m almost afraid to read Morton’s next one — Distant Hours in case it doesn’t match the quality of the first two.
Gord Turner writes here every other week.
