Relief Reads 14 - The House at Riverton

The House at Riverton by Kate Morton

Charity Shop: I don't know! :(

Charity: ??? I bought it too long ago

Price: £1.99 - the sticker is still on.

Book Blurb: 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. // Winter 1999 // Grace Bradley, ninety-eight, one-time housemaid at Riverton Manor, is visited by a young director making a film about the poet's suicide. Ghosts awaken and old memories - long consigned to the dark reaches of Grace's mind - begin to sneak back through the cracks. A shocking secret threatens to emerge, something history has forgotten but Grace never could. // Set as the war-shattered Edwardian summer surrenders to the decadent twenties, The House at Riverton is a thrilling mystery and compelling love story.

Expectation: Some sort of murder mystery-esq thing.

Reality: This book is the reason for my massive delay in writing reviews (I'm now three books behind) The ending is truely shocking and disastrous and I still can't get my head around it. I've read two/three further books since this and my thoughts keep returning to this book. I can't tell you the ending, lest you read it in future, but if you have read it I'd love to discuss it with you because there's a bit I'm confused about.
The story is written as a dictaphone record of Grace's memory of events to her grandson Marcus. Slowly the overall story of her life is revealed alongside the intricate details of the events from 1914 - 1924. The flicking between times is a little disorientating which I think is supposed to mirror Grace's thoughts as she is a dying women.

Overall Rating

It was a struggle           2        3        4        5        6        7        8       9      Gripping page  

to make it                                                                                                        turner

Knowing the ending from the beginning is a driving force to keep reading as you want to know how it ends up the way it does. 

Twist Scale:

Knew the beginning,                                                                                 As twisty as the 

middle and end         2       3        4         5       6        7        8        9      bendy wendy road

from the first line 

I won't give it 10 as you know how it will end, but what a ride! The story spans the time when the old order of a rigid class system is swept away in the aftermath of WWI. General craziness all round, and spoken through the view point of a girl/woman who is dedicated to her role as a lady's maid. The events of the ending took me by surprise

Tear-jerker Scale:

 As dry as a house       2        3       4         5         6         7       8        9     Cried an ocean

 throughout

The story itself wasn't particulary teark-jerking, but the ending is so sad. It's making me sad just thinking about it now. (So I have very upbeat radio music to counter it!)

Main Character(s): All from the point of view of Grace. She begins her working life age 14 as a housemaid at Riverton, but becomes Hannah's maid when Hannah moves out. Through her relationship (an unequal friendship) with Hannah she know the facts about events in quite some detail, and was entrusted secrets that no-one else knew. Hannah's story is also intertwined with Grace's, which provided very interesting contrast as these two young women were from completely different social backgrounds.

Moral of the Story: I don't know. What secrets are people keeping?

***

Coming up: The railway viaduct by Edward Marston