The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton

I read this book for book club and though I was intriqued by the description, the actual reading experience did not follow through. The book opens with a four year old little girl found alone except a small white suitcase and a book of fairy tales on a dock in Maryborough Australia. No one comes looking for her so the dockmaster and his wife take her in and raise her as their own. The book weaves the stories of Nell, her granddaughter Cassandra, and Eliza, the authoress as it attempts to solve the mystery of the abandoned child. Unfortunately it quickly becomes confusing, melodramatic, and annoying. The characters are not very likable, their voices all sound alike, and I had trouble understanding their motives. It bounces from one character to the next and one time period to the next and one country to the next in a way that left me thumbing backwards to try and figure out where I was. She attempts to do too much with this book; its a little bit mystery, romance, gothic, historical fiction, and fairy tale. And it leaves the author attempting to tie too much up at the end in a contrived and unbelievable way. If you want to read a book that successfully presents and solves a historical mystery, I think A S Byatt's Possession is a truly satisfying read. I really wanted to like The Forgotten Garden but I just couldn't do it. By the way, this was received well by the book club and pretty much everyone liked it except me (sigh) 560 pages 2009