The House at Riverton
{4.5/5} “Of course, her mind, as she sat, was not immobile. She looked as though she were trying to solve the conundrum of her life. She longed for independence and adventure, yet she was a prisoner — a comfortable, well-tended prisoner, but a prisoner nonetheless. Independence required money. Her father hadn’t money to give her and she wasn’t permitted to work.”
The House at Riverton aka The Shifting Fog by Kate Morton, published in 2006
Ninety-eight-year-old Grace was contacted by a movie studio that wants her to come look at their reproduction of the house at Riverton. She worked as a maid in the house in 1924, when a poet killed himself in the lake, with 2 witnesses who never spoke to each other again. That’s what everyone thinks happened, but Grace knows the truth.
It’s about a time when the world went to war and everything changed. It’s about a time when women didn’t have as many choices as they should have, and when a choice that seemed right at the time had disastrous consequences later.
This was Morton’s 1st novel. It’s a great story — fans of her other books will want to read this one.
I’ve read all 6 of Morton’s novels. I previously reviewed The Forgotten Garden.