So you know I'm obsessed with "Downton Abbey" and I loved the book "American Heiress" because it let me re-enter that world through a brand new story. Well, this one is even more similar to Downton. At first. And then it all gets...sad. And before I go on, I just have to say that if "Downton Abbey" doesn't have a happy ending (whenever, gasp, the series must end), I will be sending some not-so-delicately worded emails to some BBC people.
But back to Kate Morton. She also wrote The Distant Hours, which I mostly enjoyed, though it was creepy and a bit confusing at times. This one has a lot of similarities and is actually, I think, better written, despite being Morton's first book. The House at Riverton occurs around World War I rather than World War II, but is also about a great house in the English countryside, codependent sisters, forlorn love, and a narrator who reminisces about the past. I know Morton has a third book out, something about a garden, which is probably pretty similar as well. She's clearly developed her own genre.
What I loved about this book is what I love about Downton Abbey: the interactions of the staff and family, the angst of WWI and the 1920's and women's lib, crotchety old matriarchs, glamorous dresses, catchy tunes (right down to "If you were the only boy in the world, and I were the only girl")...it's all so charming. If life didn't suck for women, gentility and working class alike, I may say it was the golden age. And I suppose that's why it has a mostly sad ending--the women had so few choices in their lives. One character rises above the rest to make herself happy, but it takes 68 years and is the exception rather than the norm.
One thing I'm thinking about is the intense amount of foreshadowing. As a, ahem, writer, I wonder how much is too much before it's no longer serving its purpose of intriguing the reader and preparing the way for future plot events. All the "But we didn't know yet how horrible that night would be" and "This was before the west wing burned" and so on--it IS suspenseful but maybe a little irritating too. Like the TV show "How I Met Your Mother." Just tell us about the yellow umbrella already.
I've already started reading my next book, The Red Pyramid, first in another mythology series by the same author as the Percy Jackson books. I was in the children's section of the library with my kids and had to have something to read while my son stacked endless series of blocks. Plus, my students are starting to know more about Egyptian mythology than I do, so I'd better catch up.
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