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The House at Riverton | 
 enlarge | Author: Kate Morton
Publisher: Pan
Category: Book
List Price: £7.99
Buy New: £3.82
You Save: £4.17 (52%)
Media: Paperback
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.1 x 1.5
ISBN: 0330448447
EAN: 9780330448444
ASIN: 0330448447
Publication Date: June 15, 2007
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews: Read 218 more reviews...
 Excellent September 6, 2008
I spent a lovely day curled up on the sofa with this book. It's beautifully written and draws you in from the beginning.
Grace is a house maid at Riverton during the 2nd world war. When 2 sisters Hannah and Emmeline come to stay Grace feels inexplicably drawn to them.
Although the story travels towards a tragedy you know is coming the ending is still a surprise.
I couldn't put it down.
 Like comfort food, enjoyable but rather predictable August 31, 2008
This story is well written, detailed and narrated perfectly, however it just didn't quite hit the spot for me. Thought it was a bit slow and could have been a quarter shorter in length. What peeved me off the most though, was that although it is totally predictable, I still read on and enjoyed it!, proves just how well written it really is. Worth a read (an enjoyable one!)and definately a great one for auntie/grandma's christmas box.
 good qualitycomfort reading August 31, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I don't think it makes any difference reading this book after reading her second one, the Forgotten Garden. I found both very absorbing in the best, cosy on the couch excellent story-telling kind of way. Not a demanding read, just really relaxing. The period is well researched, the characters engaging, perhaps there are more likeable characters in this book. The only slight reservation is that I think her works are somewhat derivative from classics of this genre. I just always get the feeling these books are written by some-one who has done a creative writing course. It's like you can see the "joins", as though she has taken on board all the very best things from other authors, but the end product is slightly stiff and contrived.
 The Emperor's new clothes? August 26, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I read a lot of the one star reviews before picking up this book, but ignored them as the reviewers seemed to be literary snobs. I guessed they'd just taken offence to a good, commercial page-turner, which is the kind of book I love. Well, I was wrong. The House at Riverton is dull, dull, dull.
OK - so this is supposed to be a mystery and a love story. Re: the mystery: if you haven't guessed the two "twists" by page 40, you're not terribly bright. As soon as we learn that a poet committed suicide while 2 sisters watched - one his fiance, the other his lover - it's kind of obvious what happened. Hmmm... what COULD the mystery be? Perhaps that he didn't die by his own hand... Shocker! And as for Grace's parentage - as soon as she meets the mistress of the house, who meaningfully turns away when she asks about her mother, it's OBVIOUS AS HELL who her father is. And as for the love story, it doesn't start until page 450 (of a 580 page book). Given that was the most interesting part of the book, why was it left so late?
But, these complaints aside, my main problem was with the narrative voice, which I found unconvincing and uninteresting - if an author's going to write in the 1st person, there should be a damn good reason for doing so. In Notes on a Scandal, the narrator is the most interesting part of the whole book, and Zoe Heller captures the bitter, lonely old busy-body perfectly. Whereas Grace in the House at Riverton is simply a dull person with no personality. Personally, I think it would have been easier to get into the book if it had been told in the 3rd person, as a family saga. The characters of the family - so much more interesting than Grace - would have been much clearer then. The device of the servant endlessly overhearing conversations didn't really draw you into the action. And all the dramatic scenes lost their impact because it was reported.
All the chapters in the present were a big yawn - it was like re-watching those awful Titanic scenes - to the point where, when Grace goes back to Riverton, a young boy climbs a marble statue and shouts - "I'm the king of the world!" Ugh. I didn't care about Ursula (the film director) and whether she felt guilty about her son; or ff Arthur and Grace got together; or about the kokky carer Sylvia'; or about the grandson... Yawn, yawn, yawn.
I thought the historical context was also handled very badly. It felt liked Kate Morton had done her research and then contrived scenes to force it in - like discussions on Henry Ford (yawn!) For a much better interpretation of WWI & the suffragette movement, try Penny Vincenzi's No Angel. There has been enough talk of how derivative The House at Riverton is without me needing to go on about it any more. But yes - it's highly unoriginal, too.
Sometimes I don't enjoy a book, but I can still apreciate how other people might have liked it. But this time I'm really at a loss. Are all the positive reviews written by people too afraid of going against the consensus? I guess winning a R&J award guarantees success whatever the book is like. But I wonder how many people would have got past the first 3 chapters if they hadn't been told beforehand that it was a brilliant read? I know I wanted to quit reading, but persisted because I was sure so many people couldn't be wrong. Now I'm beginning to suspect all the good reviews are by the very people who would have claimed to love the Emperor's new clothes...
Not Great Literature but.... August 20, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is not great literature but it was a really good holiday read with a strong ending which did not leave you feeling let down. It is a combination of "Upstairs Downstairs" mixed with elements of "The Go-Between" and with a splash of "Brideshead Revisited". Well worth a read.
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