The Distant Hours

I waited a long time to read Kate Morton's, The Distant Hours. Both her other novels, The Forgotten Garden and The House at Riverton, are among my favourites. The book trailer I previewed many months ago was the perfect teaser, and the novel itself did not disappoint.

The book opens with the prologue from a dark and sinister children's tale, The True History of the Mud Man.





Something changes. The girl senses it and shivers. Presses her hand to the icy window and leaves a starry print within the condensation. The witching hour is upon her, though she does not know to call it that. There is no one left to help her now. The train is gone, the poacher lies beside his wife, even the baby sleeps, having given up trying to tell the world all that it knows. At the castle the girl in the window is the only one awake; her nurse has stopped snoring and her breaths are so light now that one might think her frozen; the birds in the castle wood are silent too, heads tucked beneath their shivering fenders, eyes sealed in thin gray lines against the thing they know is coming.

The story begins in England in the eary 1940's. A postman goes on a bender and leaves a satchel full of mail in his home for fifty years. The lost mail is finally delivered, and this is how a mysterious letter sent from a place called Milderhurst Castle, comes to arrive one Sunday in February of 1992, at the home of Edie Burchill's mother. Only child Edie is naturally curious about the contents of the letter, especially when her distant mother responds to it in such an emotional manner.

With some prodding, Edie discovers that her mother was evacuated from London during the Second World War. At the age of thirteen, Meredith finds herself in the village of Milderhurst, standing in a church hall, separated from her brother, her sister, and school friends, waiting to be selected to live with a local family. She is one of the last child evacuees to be selected.

"I wasn't the last to go. There were a few others, a little boy with a terrible skin condition. I don't know what happened to him, but he was still standing there in that hall when I left."
"You know, for a long time afterwards, years and years, I forced myself to buy bruised fruit if that's what I picked up first at the greengrocer's. None of this checking it over and over and putting it back on the shelf if it didn't measure up."
"She came in late. The room was almost clear, most of the children had gone and the ladies from the Women's Voluntary Service were putting away the tea things. I'd started to cry a little, though I did so very discreetly. Then all of a sudden, she swept in and the room, the very air, seemed to alter."
"...Oh, I don't know. Just more. Beautiful in an odd way, long hair, big eyes, rather wild looking, but it wasn't that alone which set her apart. She was only seventeen at the time, in September 1939, but the other women all seemed to fold into themselves when she arrived."

And now Kate Morton has hooked her reader. What happened to young Merry in the fall of 1939? Who was the seventeen year old beauty who came to claim her evacuee? What events transpired at Milderhurst Castle during the war years that have been hushed for half a century?
I'm not going to say too much more about the story- other than it is very "Miss Havisham-my."
I so love a good gothic, and this book has all of the required elements. But you can listen to Morton herself on how this story came to be. Here is a quick little video (I must warn you, not only is she an incredible storyteller, she has a cool accent, is some sort of PhD, has long shiny hair, a beautiful face, weighs about five ounces less than nothing... a bit depressing really... Would it be too much to ask that she looked more like Nanny McPhee? Okay, enough of my verbal green eyes of envy...) about The Distant Hours.

The Shifting Fog (The House at Riverton) by Kate Morton

A few weeks ago, I blogged about my intention to read The Shifting Fog over my birthday weekend, at the cottage. As is so typically me, I created in advance an idyllic situation where I would be reading lakeside while all around me cute Disney-like creatures would scamper and play. My children would enjoy each other's company and my husband would suspend 'FIN' night in honour of this special occasion. (Yes, some married couples keep things romantic with a weekly date night, but not us. We have FIN. Each Friday I have Financial Interrogation Night to look forward to. This wonderful evening begins with my husband updating our bank book and bringing it home. After dinner, we retire to the living room with our coffee. I sit facing him - this new rule was added after I would not make eye contact during the whole "cash back on the grocery receipt is not necessarily Judy's spending money, please look me in the eye fiasco" and he proceeds to grill me on all of the withdrawals from the past week. Whether or not they are my withdrawals or his, I am held entirely responsible. I am the impulsive one. I am supposed to keep receipts. Most weeks I lose it by the rapid fire round. I crack under the pressure.

"Yes, I had two five dollar Green Tea Latte's this week and and I attempted to slide the $50 of scrapbooking merchandise past you as feminine hygiene products. It's the new millenium Ebenezeer, get over yourself!" Finally we conclude with a little talk on the difference between "wants and needs" and I stare him directly in the eye, well as best I can as I simultaneously roll them into the back of my head. But, oh, the passion! Who needs a night out when I can remain in the comfort of my own home and learn all about modern day debtor's prison.)


Here is what I actually wrote in that blog post:

"My birthday is coming soon and with it my first trip to the cottage. The grounds will be green and the lake the stormy blue of springtime. Loons will proudly parade their new babies up and down the north and south shores and the temperature will be cool enough that I can wrap myself up in a quilt as I watch them glide majestically by. I may not be able to read on the dock as I generally love to, because the spring also is host to the birth of an endless variety of small biting, stinging insects (Always keep mouth closed in boat). For my birthday, it's usually the black flies, so I will wrap myself up in the screened room where I can read and watch the lake in all its splendor. My birthday present to me will be The Shifting Fog.*
*Note to Wayne: I know you sometimes read my blog. This is not to be taken literally. This is my "reading gift to me" and this statement is under poetic license and cannot be used against me to excuse gifts (like perhaps an ipad, flowers, chocolates..)."

Here is what transpired:

It was pouring rain when we finally arrived at the marina around 10pm on Friday night. Jill went to get the life jackets out of the boat and discovered little padlocks were securing all the compartments (Captain Safety in another moment of inspiration). So Captain Safety whispers the secret combination to open these treasure troves (no one but the Disney Creatures around for miles) and we set about to opening them. But it was so dark, and the baby padlocks were so tiny, that not one of us could read any of the numbers. Our boat is in a covered slip so we had some protection against the elements but I had found the one space where the beams were letting rain droplets the size of goose eggs bomb me from above. Now, all boats are required to have a light source aboard and I know that we keep a big flashlight on ours, but Captain Safety had secured this in the treasure trove along with our Canadian Tire life jackets and orange raincoats. So the kids came to the rescue by using the ambient light from their ipod's. We painstakingly began the process of spinning the tiny wheels of the lock (even worse than my big fingers texting on a blackberry - I look back at the text and think, where did all those extra letters and symbols come from?). We each took a turn spinning the wheels or holding the ipod close to the lock. Jill finally got one opened and we had life jackets. Captain Safety worked on the other and after persevering for at least 3 minutes, smashed open the ultra secure tiny baby padlock with his pinky finger. Aaaah, now we had raincoats. Well, we had two raincoats. So these went to our two children (keeping the peace, these teenagers were less than impressed with coming to the cottage for a quiet weekend in the first place). Yet, as I watched them put them on, there was a brief moment when I felt that just maybe I could devour my young for warmth. It passed, and I used some extra life jackets (the ones we have all abandoned because once we saw a dock spider on them and are now convinced that they nest in them kind of thing) to cover myself with. Captain Safety said "I'm good" and did not require any extra protection against the elements.

We decided that the rain was not going to let up and that we would just have to bear the ride the best we could. It slowed us down considerably. There was no moonlight to help guide us and very few cottagers on the lake with their properties lit up. We leisurely crawled up the lake while being pelted by icy torrents of rain. There were no loons calling or owls hooting, even our dog was too miserable to bark at everything that moves. When we reached our dock, we were soaked to the bone, tired, hungry and cold. Very, very cold.

The next morning I awoke to the pleasant sound of the continuous torrential rain. It was too cold to sit in the screened room. Besides, the view was still obscured by the heavy plastic sheets that wrap the room for the winter months. Hard to believe that Wayne had been up twice in April to open up and came back both times sunburned and informed me in his best Food Network voice, "Bring foods that can be cooked by crockpot because we don't want the cottage to get too hot." Yes, thank-you, Mr. Ramsay.

The morning rain became sleet, and then the sleet became snow. SNOW. Not little melting crystal like flakes, but the kind that actually coat the ground snowflakes. Accompanied by the kind of Ontario winds that even Laura Ingalls could appreciate. I felt like little Half-Pint when I made my way back from the outhouse. I wanted to tie a rope around my waist and call, "Pa, I've milked the cow, pull me back in from the barn!" However, Captain Safety draws a line between safety and comfort and wasn't willing to take drastic measures. He made one announcement to the family that the deck was very slippery due to the freezing rain that was now covered in snow which made it quite dangerous, and would we all be careful, etc. He then absolved himself from responsibility and went down to the dock to play with some 2x4's and noisy tools for the rest of the day in his T-shirt and shorts. The Canadian man in his element.

All Disney-like creatures on the lake were unavailable for comment, including the bugs. I turned on the oven and put lunch in to bake (I have been known to not take Captain Safety's well intended advice) and thought, I'm going to crawl back into bed and read The Shifting Fog. Nothing can spoil my birthday/Mother's Day weekend. Unless, of course, technology fails you.

My Sony e-reader has shorted out exactly twice in the year that I have had it. Both times at the cottage. Now, I purchased the ac adapter for this very reason and both times have left it at home. Sometimes, my personal lightbulb burns very dimly.

Needless to say, it felt like the longest build-up to read a book ever. I finally read it the following week and I enjoyed it very much, but not quite as much as The Forgotten Garden. And a large part of this is my own doing. It's all in the build-up. Because I read The Forgotten Garden first and adored it, I believed that this one would be even better. It may also have been the reading order. The Shifting Fog was Kate Morton's first novel and The Forgotten Garden her second. The stories share many similarities and I may have said the opposite had I read the books in that order. Nevertheless, a great read.

The Shifting Fog takes the reader back in time to Edwardian England to unfold the mystery of the death of a young poet on the grounds of Riverton Manor during a summer house party in 1924. The story is told in flashback by Grace Bradley, the 98 year old former maid at Riverton. Grace has kept her secret a lifetime and knows she is racing against time to tell it before it is too late. Her memories are spurred by the upcoming movie about the events of Robbie Hunter's death so many decades ago, and the visits she receives from the movie's director, Ursula.

The story begins with Grace's mother sending her to work in the big manor house that she once worked in. Young Grace quickly becomes mesmerized with the Hartfield family and in particular the siblings, Daniel, Hannah and Emmeline. She also is befriended by the household staff and learns about life in 'service'.

The siblings grow into adulthood during WWI and are introduced to the charming poet, Robbie Hunter, by their brother Daniel. Both sisters are attracted to him and the reader can infer that the secret that Grace has kept with her a lifetime has to do with his suicide and the fact that Grace and Emmeline never spoke again after that night.

Grace develops a close friendship with the footman, Alfred. He decides to go off to war and soon reveals that he was not meant for a life tending to the whims of the aristocracy. The war changes the decadence of the early 1900's and threatens the class structure of society. Grace must make a decision about her devotion to the Hartfield family and her independence.

And she must live with her decision for a lifetime.

Kate Morton's website has much to say about the contemporary gothic and the confessional narrative. It is an excellent site to visit to not only get a book summary but also to catch a glimpse of her writing process and gain some insight into how her stories germinate.

It will be very hard while I await the release of The Distant Hours, not to build-up this third Kate Morton novel in my mind.

Video clips of Kate Morton discussing The Shifting Fog/The House at Riverton and The Forgotten Garden.

The Distant Hours: A New Kate Morton Coming This Year!

I was reading my favourite book blogs this morning and thanks to Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea I discovered that Kate Morton's third novel, The Distant Hours, is due to be released later this year. Not too long ago I blogged about my love for The Forgotten Garden. I have yet to read The Shifting Fog (The House at Riverton) but fortunately I have it listed as one of my To Be Read 2010 Challenge books. I was "saving" this book for a later read. I suppose my rationale was that Morton has only published two novels and if I raced through the second there would be nothing left to anticipate. But in her blog post, Diane discussed reading the best books first, and the quote under her blog heading explains:

“Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them all” --Henry David Thoreau

My birthday is coming soon and with it my first trip to the cottage. The grounds will be green and the lake the stormy blue of springtime. Loons will proudly parade their new babies up and down the north and south shores and the temperature will be cool enough that I can wrap myself up in a quilt as I watch them glide majestically by. I may not be able to read on the dock as I generally love to, because the spring also is host to the birth of an endless variety of small biting, stinging insects (Always keep mouth closed in boat). For my birthday, it's usually the black flies, so I will wrap myself up in the screened room where I can read and watch the lake in all its splendor. My birthday present to me will be The Shifting Fog.*

*Note to Wayne: I know you sometimes read my blog. This is not to be taken literally. This is my "reading gift to me" and this statement is under poetic license and cannot be used against me to excuse gifts (like perhaps an ipad, flowers, chocolates..).

Here is a book blurb that I found on http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/:

"Edie Burchill and her mother have never been close, but when a long lost letter arrives one Sunday afternoon with the return address of Millderhurst Castle, Kent, printed on its envelope, Edie begins to suspect that her mother's emotional distance masks an old secret. Evacuated from London as a thirteen year old girl, Edie's mother is chosen by the mysterious Juniper Blythe, and taken to live at Millderhurst Castle with the Blythe family: Juniper, her twin sisters and their father, Raymond. In the grand and glorious Millderhurst Castle, a new world opens up for Edie's mother. She discovers the joys of books and fantasy and writing, but also, ultimately, the dangers. Fifty years later, as Edie chases the answers to her mother's riddle, she, too, is drawn to Millderhurst Castle and the eccentric Sisters Blythe. Old ladies now, the three still live together, the twins nursing Juniper, whose abandonment by her fiance in 1941 plunged her into madness. Inside the decaying castle, Edie begins to unravel her mother's past. But there are other secrets hidden in the stones of Millderhurst Castle, and Edie is about to learn more than she expected. The truth of what happened in the distant hours has been waiting a long time for someone to find it... "

Kate Morton's journal page reveals that The Distant Hours will be available in the US, Australia and the UK in November of 2010. Merry Christmas to me! Merry Christmas to me! *

*Note to Wayne: I know you sometimes read my blog. This is not to be taken literally. This is my "reading gift to me" and this statement is under poetic license and cannot be used against me to excuse gifts (like perhaps an ipad, flowers, chocolates..).

Here is a cool little book trailer that really sets the stage beautifully for the feel of Kate Morton's writing.

The Distant Hours from Kate Morton on Vimeo.

The Forgotten Garden

The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton is the first book that I have completed for the "What's in a Name? (3) Challenge. I'm using this for my "Book with a plant in the title." I figure a whole garden is just as significant as one plant. Especially a garden rich with secrets.
The Forgotten Garden starts in London, 1913, when a four year old girl is abandoned aboard a ship bound for Australia. She is told by the mysterious "Authoress" to remain hidden behind a barrel and to keep her name a secret. But the Authoress never returns and the little girl survives the voyage and is left standing alone on the wharf with a little white suitcase containing her only belongings and the only clues to her identity.
The mystery shifts backwards and forwards in time over the span of a century. Three main characters help to move the story forward and fill in the gaps that lead the reader ever closer to the truth (Eliza, who we meet as a young child orphaned in London (1900) working to earn her keep alongside her twin brother Sammy, a chimney sweep; Nell, who is 95 in present time -(2005) and spends much of her life troubled by a secret she learns on her 21st birthday and carries with her to her deathbed; Nell's granddaughter, Cassandra, who not only inherits a cottage high atop the rugged, rocky cliffs of Cornwall, but also the quest that her grandmother started in 1975).
Of course this gothic tale would not be complete without the presence of a coldly calculating, aristocratic family whose lives are intertwined with our main characters. The Mountrachet family reside at Blackhurst, a large country estate complete with a maze... that leads to a garden.

There are many parallels in this story to the famous children's book, The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849-1924). The story of young Mary Lennox brought to live on her Uncle's large and stuffy English estate. Mary befriends her sickly cousin Colin who craves his father's attention and together with the young gardener Dicken, they set to restore to life the garden that caused his father so much pain. Morton cheekily has Burnett make a "cameo" appearance in this story, as herself, a liberated, society woman (imagine being twice divorced at the end of the Victorian era, an established writer, and a powerful figure to boot - I really like this lady! Note to self - more research on Burnett - for example, Why, oh why, did you name one of your sons Vivian?) invited to a soiree at Blackhurst (1909) and takes an interest in the maze on the grounds of the estate. Burnett was living in England at this time and left to reside (until her death) in the United States that same year. The Secret Garden was published in 1911 and it has been said that Burnett's "secret garden" actually existed and she discovered it in Kent, at Great Maytham Hall, where she lived from 1898 until 1907.
The first movie that I ever saw at the cinema (that I remember) was the 1949 black and white version of The Secret Garden starring Margaret O'Brien. The year was 1971 and the movie was then well over two decades old. Imagine paying $10 or more today to see a movie more than 20 years old! I was mesmerized by the movie and just beside myself when the black and white gave way to glorious technicolor as the garden came to life. I remember being enthralled with the beauty and magical qualities of that walled garden. Did pixies live behind the rose bushes? Were elves peeking out of the ivy? I didn't really give a hoot about wimpy, whiny Colin and his miraculous restoration to health. In fact, I wanted to pinch him. I wanted to pinch him very hard for every nasty temper tantrum, for lying about feeling sorry for his miserable self in his dark, dreary bedroom screaming at Mary. (Ok, I was five, perhaps I missed the bigger message of the story.) It would be a few more years before I discovered that the movie was based on a children's story, one waiting for me to find in the library, crack it's spine and return to the garden once again.
Just as I was mesmerized as a child by Burnett's story of a mysterious secret garden, I was equally spellbound by Morton's story. I feel that my review is not doing this story the justice it deserves. My fear is that the more I divulge, the more I spoil. There is a reason that this story is listed on many of my fellow book bloggers "To Be Read" (TBR) lists. It's outstanding!
One more thing before I close. Central to the mystery is a beautifully illustrated volume of Victorian fairytales found inside the child's little white suitcase. These tales are told in their entirety as the story unfolds. They are enchanting and so well written that I literally found myself "googling" their fictitious author. I figured if Morton inserted Frances Hodgson Burnett then maybe....

Can't wait to read Morton's other novel, The Shifting Fog (also titled, The House at Riverton), which is on my "To Be Read Challenge 2010" list.

26 Books and other Challenges

Well my course is finished (Peter's last, he's on to his thesis- keep sending me book suggestions) and the Christmas Holidays are fast approaching. I've finally had some time to think about my personal reading and the commitment I intend to make to this in 2010.

As many of you know (Ok, I use the term "many" very broadly here) I have blogged about my intent to complete a "26 Books" challenge over the course of the year. I have hundreds of books just waiting TBR all stored securely in my ereader. But how to pick 26?

I subscribe via RSS feeds to several book blogs through my Google Reader. I can read multiple book reviews and add to my reading wishlist. Through one of my favourites Book Addiction I heard about the "What's in a Name? 3 " challenge. I thought that it might be fun to incorporate a few mini challenges into my bigger one and make connections with other book lovers and bloggers.

What's in a Name? Challenge

Between Jan 1-Dec 31 2010 I need to read one book for each of the following categories:
My selections are in brackets.


1. A book with a food in the title (Chocolat by Joanne Harris)

2. A book with a body of water in the title (Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie)

3. A book with a title in the title (The Constant Princess by Philippa Gregory - I may even try and make this one work with a series challenge)

4. A book with a plant in the title (The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton)

5. A book with a place name in the title ((My Life in France by Julia Child)

6. A book with a music term in the title (I'm still thinking about this one)

The books do not have to be read in any particular order, do not have to be selected ahead of time, and this challenge is ok to be imbedded or overlap with others.

I'm not sure where I'll start but it has already been fun selecting books for these categories. I hope for a few January "snow days" to kick start my initiative!