I thought I owned this novel, but couldn't find it, so I borrowed it from the library. The other day I noticed it in my 92-year-old mother's bookcase among the books I had brought for her (she reads 5-6 books a week!).
Anyway, be prepared for a truly great and intriguing story. It is interesting to me that the same techniques (multiple narrators, jumping back and forth in time) that really annoyed me in Morton's The House at Riverton somehow delighted me here. The story is basically a woman's search for her own identity, continued for her after her death by her granddaughter.
When "Nell" was 3 or 4 years old she was discovered sitting alone on a dock in 1913 Australia with a small white suitcase and no clue who she was or how she came to travel from England all alone except for the memory of "the authoress" who boarded the great ship with her and then disappeared. The Dockmaster, Hugh, takes her home and he and his wife raise her as their own after failing to discover her identity. On her 21st birthday her father reveals that she is actually not their daughter, but a foundling of sorts, well-loved but not of their blood. This throws Nell's world into chaos, prompting her to break her engagement and rethink her whole life and identity.
Morton does a wonderful job creating doubts and revealing the details of Nell's past bit by bit, moving back and forth between 1900, 1913, 1975, and 2005. The novel begins with Nell's death in 2005, with many questions about her origins still unanswered. When her granddaughter, Cassandra, learns that she has inherited a mysterious cottage in Cornwall, purchased in 1975 by Nell, she travels to England to investigate this possible clue to Nell's past.
I need to warn you that the transitions from one era to another can be confusing and I found myself several times thinking, "Who is Linus?" and "Who was Hugh again?" The novel was well-worth a little confusion, though. It is rich is fairy tales, historical details, mystery, adventure, and characters ranging from diabolical to romantic to delightfully eccentric. I would recommend it highly.
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