The Forgotten Garden

     No, I am not stuck in a garden rut.  The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton is just another wonderful read with the word garden in it's title.

     This is Cassandra's story, but it is also the story of her Grandmother Nell.  Nell took Cassandra in as a child, giving her a true home and security that her mother never had.  When Nell passes away, Cassandra discovers that her grandmother had been found as a small child, alone on the wharf in Queensland, Australia clutching a book, not knowing who she was.  She was lovingly raised by a dock worker and his wife.  The granddaughter also finds that her grandmother had never stopped looking for her real parents.  After Nell's death, Cassandra continues the search.

     What we find in this book is the stories of three women and those stories connect, even to the end, in a forgotten garden in a Cornish village in England.  We learn all we need to know from three perspectives, in three time periods, carefully interwoven information, past and present.  Oh yes, and we also get a fairytale!  The mystery is not easily solved and kept me riveted to the end.

     Kate Morton's books, The House at Riverton and The Distant Hours, were equally as satisfying.

The Winter Garden

            Kristen Hannah never fails to make me cry, at least once, while reading one of her books.  As I read The Winter Garden, I actually sobbed!
 

This book retells the life of a Russian-born woman who suffered unbearable hardship in Stalinist Leningrad.  Meredith, her eldest daughter, must try to fulfill her fathers dying wish that she take care of her mother, not something she wants to do. In flash backs we find out, as do Meredith and Nina, why their mother has always behaved distant and cold to them.  We also see how this has shaped the daughters and affected their lives.
 

            I learned much about Russian history from this book, thanks to Hannah’s careful research. And, as always, each and every character came to life on the pages.

    A tearjerker, but I loved it.