I have always been a Kate Morton fan but this book was different than her others. The dominant setting in the book is Birchwood Manor, a centuries old mansion on a large estate on the banks of the Thames. The main character is a ghost who tells her story, beginning in the mid 1800's when as a small child she was left in the care of a London family who made their living as pickpockets, thiefs, and other unsavoury activities. The story moves to following time periods including present time when archivist Elodie Winslow discovers an 1860's artist's sketchbook in a satchel, along with an enchanting photo of a mysterious woman. Curiosity and thoroughness in her job motivate Elodie to unravel the story behind the photo and other items. It leads her to Birchwood Manor, the place where all the characters end up at one time or another, in their search for love, sanctuary, light, but where they also find murder and hidden secrets. Other characters in the decades between enter the story, including the artist's sister Lucy, historian leonard, wartime widow Juliet and her three children, and Jack, a freelance photographer who is on a special assignment to Birchwood Manor. The author weaves together the individual stories, linking them to form a novel of love and intrigue that will capture the reader from the first words.
I read the book in about 3 days and I would recommend having a chunk of time (airline flight like me!) to read this because the jumps between different time periods and characters is a bit confusing. I think it would be difficult to start and stop the reading frequently. I read it as an ebook, a free copy provided by the publisher. I would have preferred a hard copy to enable being able to refer back to earlier pages.
I do love capitivating stories that are hard to put down, with characters that I come to love. Kate Morton has done that with The Clockmaker's Daughter.

Thank you NetGalley, Kate Morton and Simon & Schuster for the free e-book in exchange for an honest review.

Elodie is an archivist and discovers a satchel with an old photograph inside and starts off the tale of an old manor house and those who cycled in and out of it. Moving between the times from 1850’s, 1860’s, post World War and 2017 we meet artists, pick pockets and archeologists who have been impacted by their time in the Birchwood Manor. Through these different timelines, we start to unravel the mystery that is the Manor.

This is my first Morton novel and when I heard she had one coming out, I just had to have it to experience her writing. I found this book extremely long and there were a lot of characters to keep in mind to try to remember who had to do with what. I did appreciate the writing and how everything fit together in the end, but I found myself reading this in small amounts because I was losing interest and didn’t want to give it up. I loved how the writing really allowed me to picture where the characters were and how each and every character saw the Manor at different times in the past.

I found I was just getting into the writing in one of the timelines and then we would change to another and I found myself just not immersed into the novel the way I would have liked to be. I did think there was a little too much of this novel spent in the past because I was really enjoyed the parts with Elodie and the different chapters with Birdie. I loved that there was a little something different in this novel, in the form of a ghost story. I will definitely try another novel by Morton, but I didn’t love this one.

Out October 9th!

I had a hard time deciding on a rating. Some parts of the book I want to give a 5, others were more like a 2, and so I will end with a 3.5.

It isn't easy to come up with a summary of the plot without giving anything away. This book tells the stories of a group of different people that are all bound by one location, Birchwood Manor. We learn about their pasts and their presents and with every next chapter we also learn that they are connected to each other in other ways as well.

I enjoyed the writing. I particularly liked that the author led the reader to a specific conclusion, by following the threads of the various stories. The connections weren't just presented to us in a factual format. It was satisfying to find out the outcome of the conflict that was introduced right at the beginning. The author also used beautiful imagery throughout the book.

It was at times hard to stick with reading through the histories of the characters. At that point it's not clear how it connects to the rest of the story or the other characters. It all does come together in the end really well, if a bit slowly.

I was left wanting at the end. Don't know what I expected, but it all ended a bit abruptly.

60% completed

I'm going to give this novel 3 stars even though I didn't it all. I know that Morton is a talented writer but this book just didn't do it for me. I don't mind reading a lengthy book (the more pages, the merrier) but in this one I felt it was really long. There were way too may characters and I sometimes found it unclear who was narrating the story.

It's such a shame because the book is very well written. Not very hooking, but hooking enough. The mystery is there, although I found at times that it was getting lost in the backstory. There was a lot of that. Don't get me wrong, I love a good backstory, but it felt very overpowering at times that I forgot what the mystery was.

That being said, the novel is written beautifully. Morton's descriptions are so detailed, that it's almost as if i was there. I'm very disappointed that I did not finish this novel because it seemed like it would have a good ending. I'm not saying it's a bad book, (no hate at all) it just maybe wasn't my cup of tea.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster Canada for providing me with an advanced digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

The Clockmaker's Daughter review - no spoilers -
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This is my second Kate Morton book and I'm still not sure if she's the author for me. You'll have to deal with my unpopular opinion if you're a fan of hers, sorry. But that's the beauty of reading - we can all have our own opinions.
Moving along, The Clockmaker's Daughter is a mystery wrapped in a love story topped off with ghost story surrounded by art and betrayal. Not a bad framework really. Which is why I did give it 3.5/5. There was a lot of good, but not enough for me to become fully engrossed in the tale.
What didn't work for me was the amount of time spent in the past. I was far more interested in the parts involving Birdie in present time as well as Elodie trying to uncover the mystery.
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I felt the same about this one as The Lake House and I'm betting if you're a fan of one, you'll enjoy the other as well.
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Many thanks to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster Canada for the advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
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If you’re a fan of Kate Morton’s books, you know that two things are true of them: you wait for what feels like forever for the next one to come out and when it does, it stays with you for a very long time. The Clockmaker’s Daughter is no exception.

Morton’s latest novel is a haunting and richly detailed tome that spans more than 150 years, following the lives of several characters whose lives have intertwined because of their respective affiliations with Birchwood Manor, a sixteenth century country house in England that could arguably be considered the main character of the story.

Similar to her other books, The Clockmaker’s Daughter jumps back and forth between time periods, follows multiple interconnected stories, and hinges on one tragic decision made by someone in a crisis that has been kept secret for generations.

Elodie is the latest in a series of people who are drawn to the mysteries and almost magnetic force of Birchwood Manor. She works as an archivist in present-day London for the estate of James Stratton, a successful Victorian banker, and she discovers among his possessions a leather satchel containing a sketchbook, a photograph, and a letter. The sketchbook contains a drawing of a house that Elodie is certain she knows, a house from a story that her late mother told her as a child.

She sets out to discover how it is that James Stratton came into possession of these items, what their significance is, and why the house feels so familiar. Told from multiple perspectives, the novel then traces the stories of several other people impacted by the house, including Edward Radcliffe, the artist who purchased the house in 1862 and whose fiancée was killed during the robbery; his sister, Lucy; his model; Leonard, a student writing a dissertation on Edward; and Juliet, a young mother who evacuated to Birchwood Manor with her children during the war.

The story does not progress chronologically, but rather, from all angles at once, as though time stood still and everything that had happened at the house could just as easily have been yesterday as a century-and-a-half ago.

I found the fantasy element in this book much stronger than in any of Morton’s others, making it read almost like a fairy tale. (Not the type of fairy tale where princes save princesses, mind you. The other, darker kind.) The writing itself is almost magical; Morton has such a beautiful way with words. She transports her readers to a variety of settings, and one cannot help but feel like they are actually in Birchwood Manor, or sitting by the river, or running from a policeman through the streets of London.

Consider her description of the Thames: “The Thames here had a vastly different character to the wide, muddy tyrant that seethed through London. It was graceful and deft and remarkably light of heart. It skipped over stones and skimmed its banks, water so clear that one could see the reeds swaying deep down on her narrow bed. The river here was a she, he’d decided. For all its sunlit transparency, there were certain spots in which it was suddenly unfathomable.”

Morton weaves these beautiful metaphors in subtly, avoiding unnecessary elaborations. For example, about two characters who are reminiscing over a loved on they’ve lost, she writes, “They were two moons bound in orbit around his memory.”

Her character development is almost as impeccable as her rendering of the places, though some of the character were more clearly developed than others. I loved Edward—how forward thinking he was, how passionate, how completely absorbed in his craft. As a central figure to the story though, I felt like I didn’t get enough of him.

On the downside, as with many novels of this magnitude, the book took a while to grab my attention. I love Kate Morton’s books, so I know by now that the build-up is always worth it, but usually I’m enraptured within a few chapters. With The Clockmaker’s Daughter, I honestly didn’t start whipping through the pages until I was about seventy percent of the way through. That isn’t to say that the rest wasn’t well written; it was just that the mystery itself didn’t particularly grab at me until that point. From then on, I struggled to put it down.

Further, I felt like there were, perhaps, a few too many coincidences to be believable; also, I was left with many unanswered questions. It is the kind of book that makes me want to go back and read it again after I’ve finished it to see what details I might have missed.

Finally, without giving to much away, I have to mention that I am not really a fan of ghost stories, and the ghostly nature of The Clockmaker’s Daughter did, at times, make this book uncomfortable for me. Again, the quality of the writing and the grip of the narrative outweighed my discomfort, but I did find it somewhat unnerving.

I would recommend this book to fans of Kate Morton’s other works, or to those who enjoy novels such as Sarah’s Key or Those Who Save Us.

[Special thanks to Net Galley for the opportunity to review this special devotional. All opinions are my own.]

4.5 stars

When an archivist, Elodie, in 2017 comes into possession of a few items, it leads her to a house that holds all kinds of secrets since the mid-1800s. In fact, her family is even connected to the house; her grandmother and her grandmother’s children once lived in that house.

This one covered snippets of many points in time, starting with the mid-1800s onward (well, it hopped around back and forth in time), though the bulk of the story is in that earliest time period. It took me a long time to figure out who the “I” was, to be honest, as there was an “I” character in many different time periods. The shocker at the end (quite horrifying, really) was what brought up my rating to 4.5.

This is the first Kate Morton novel I have read and I really loved the way she told her story. The whole story revolves around a house called Birchwood Manor on the banks of the Thames. The story weaves together the lives of several characters who lived in the house since 1862. Slowly we are give clues to a tragedy that happened in the house, but do not know what happened for sure, or whose fault it might be until the very end. I really enjoyed these characters and pacing of the book.

Unfortunately this book did not work for me. Although the writing and the descriptions are good I felt totally disconnected from the story and it was hard to keep reading. The historical background was interesting. I guess I was expecting too much.

Okay. So this novel was not what I was expecting. It is not a novel to read at night - when the lights are turned low. And it’s dark and stormy outside. Definitely not a night time read. YIKES! It turns out that this novel is about the paranormal.
The story, like other novels by Ms. Morton, is woven intricately through the lives of every character bringing surprise moments and what?! –kind of endings. This novel did not disappoint in that regard.
The Clockmaker’s Daughter follows Elodie Winslow, an archivist who has a predictable life but is happy. Given the task of recording a box of seemingly random items that had been found stashed away in an upstairs closet at her office, she begins the task of trying to figure out if and/or how they are connected. The pieces are so random that the reader at once begins to wonder what magic is going to be pulled to make sense of it all. Elodie is drawn to the sketchbook she finds of an old house, that for some reason seems familiar to her but she knows she’s never seen it before; and the picture of a beautiful young woman from the 1860s.
150 years prior, a group of artists gather together for summer fun and creativity at a hideaway spot, Birchwood Manor. When tragedy strikes and interrupts their plans no one is ever the same again. And a young girl holds a shocking secret that could have turned the tables, but instead she carries it well into her old age and dies without telling the whole tale of what happened that summer.
The novel runs parallel stories which come colliding together and it really does make sense, but it’s kind of spooky too.
Kate Morton is a fascinating storyteller who is able to weave incredible stories together that span decades but connect in the present. She has an uncanny ability to draw the reader in from the first paragraph and maintain interest to the last word.
I’m giving this one a 4 star only because I don’t like paranormals.
I received an ecopy from the publisher through NetGalley. All opinions expressed are entirely my own.

This book is difficult to review. I had high expectations for this book for a few reasons. Firstly, the synopsis sounds brilliant and like the type of story that is right up my comfort zone. I have also heard nothing but praise from Kate Morton’s books, so I was eager to finally acquaint myself with her work.

This book however was probably not the best choice for my first Kate Morton novel and I expected more than what I got out of this book.

I did not love it as I hoped I would.

The writing is beautiful, there is no denying that. Kate Morton has a way with words that I found to be almost poetic. The setting is imaginary and exquisite, and the plot has great potential.

I started off intrigued and interested, however, as the story progressed along, I lost interest in it. I had issues with the structure. I connected little to most of the characters, and this was my main issue that caused a ripple effect for me. I had a hard time grasping who was speaking at the beginning of each chapter.

There are so many main characters, different time lines and told through different perspectives that I found myself having a difficult time staying focused and centered. Even the mystery did not seem to have a big enough impact through the story. I also felt that the pace of the book was a bit slow, as there were passages that did not contribute to the overall progression of the plot, or the character arcs in my opinion.

Overall, I am sad that I did connect to this book as I had been waiting to read it for months. I did not finish it, once my Kindle told me that I was at 70% I decided it was best that we part ways.

I would like to thank the publisher for the Advanced E-ARC.

Kate Morton is one of my favorite authors and I would like to thanks Net Galley and the book publisher Simon & Schulster Canada for the free advance copy of the book.

As most of her books, Kate Morton write about love and how it affects us and all her books are multidimensional and involve different time lines, so called family saga with the twist.
This book is written from many voices and characters ( Elodie the archivist, Birdie the clock-maker's daughter). The book takes place in modern time London, in Victorian London, in England country side and even some Victoria era India, in tie time frame of about 150 years from 1860's to modern days. The places and voices ( and one of the voices is an actual ghost) creates very interesting mosaic and tell us a story of the house - Birch wood Manor and some if his inhabitants in part and present.

I would like to add that the book required time to really get into it and immerse yourself in characters on order for the setting and voices to make sense. It is not a quick but rather a beautiful slow reading book that needs to be enjoyed with the cup of British tea near the fireplace in the long autumn evening. The language is flowing and changes from one time period and character to the other, Kate Morton is a master of expressing each character though various means , language and sentence structure even.
I really liked the book and would definitely recommend it to the wide audiences.

The Clockmaker's Daughter was a pleasant surprise.

It's not the type of novel that lends well to a synopsis in my opinion, without it either being too vague or too detailed, but here's my attempt:

In 1862, Edward Radcliffe and his group of artsy friends decide to spend a few weeks in Birchwood Manor. They want to spend some time creating and having fun. But things do not end as they expect: one woman is shot dead, another vanishes, and a precious jewel goes missing.

In present time, Elodie Winslow comes across a leather satchel during her work as an archivist. Inside is an old photograph of a woman, and a drawing of a house that Elodie remembers from a tale her mother used to tell her. Elodie becomes obsessed with the contents of the satchel and to whom it belonged. She also wants to figure out exactly where this house is and who the woman is in the photograph, and will not stop until she has her answers.

When I first started reading, I was a bit put off by its length. I can read long books no problem, but the slow pace of the opening chapters also made it feel much longer.

The beginning of the novel is told in alternating perspectives between Elodie and someone who was there that summer in 1862, with Edward Radcliffe and his assortment of artsy friends. Someone whose name is missing from history, but who remembers everything.

To be honest, it was the narration of the mystery narrator that appealed to me most. Elodie's side of the story was a bit boring. Although I was interested in the mystery she was pursuing, her narrative doesn't actively unfold it. Certainly she is important because she figures out certain points that later all tie together, but her side of story is burdened by her impending marriage and her relationship with her deceased mother.

Meanwhile, I loved the narration from the mystery narrator. It takes a while to unfold everything, but I was absolutely invested in that part of the narrative and how the narrator was related to Edward Radcliffe and Birchwood Manor.

Something I didn't expect from this novel was the expansion of perspectives from other characters. I have a feeling this may be a point of criticism for other readers, but I really enjoyed them all. Since this is a story that stretches from 1862 to present day (at least 2017), I appreciated the perspectives that came in between these two historical points. Each of them were related to the overall story, and connected to Birchwood Manor and our mystery narrator.

Beyond my complaints about Elodie's perspective, I truly enjoyed this novel. It did sometimes drag but it provided enough questions and answers to keep me invested in the story. I think the additional narrations really elevated the overall story for me.

Overall, this was definitely one of my favourite longer reads of the year. I recommend it if you're interested in historical fiction, mystery, and ghosts (in the figurative and perhaps the literal sense, too).

Told from multiple viewpoints, planning from mid 1800s to present time, a women tells her story. No one remembers her name or knows her story but the house she resides in. The Clockmaker’s Daughter is a story of murder, mystery, love, loss, and time. Although it can be confusing at times to try and keep the story lines and people straight, this was an excellent book that unfolded as you read. Very similar writing style to Kate Morton’s other books.

*I received this advanced reader’s copy in exchange for my honest review

Birchwood Manor is a brooding historic home with more than a few stories to tell. Birdie, one of the main characters acts like a narrator for the story. We get to know fragmented parts of her story but we also get to see all of the other lives inexplicably drawn to the home as well. Throughout the years people have come and gone, each person unknowingly becoming part of the home's story.

"The Clockmaker's Daughter" is my first read by Kate Morton and I have mostly only positive things to say about it. The novel has such a picturesque setting and who doesn't love a large historic home just waiting for someone to unravel its mysterious past? As readers we get multiple points of view which gives us a birds eye view of Birchwood Manor throughout its history. However, the alternating points of view can also be occasionally difficult to navigate from chapter to chapter. Some reviewers have mentioned that the story was hard to follow, but I actually enjoyed getting to hear all about the lives of each of the characters. I think Morton did an excellent job at navigating the complex plot while still being able to give us enough about each character to be able to connect with them. Some of the branches in the plot did die off, but I didn't really miss them and did not feel they added to the success of the book overall.

Elodie is another one of the stories main characters and she is easy to connect with right away. She seems like she is a down to earth girl who just gets drawn into the history of Edward Radcliffe and his family's story. Edward Radcliffe came from a wealthy family and was an aspiring artist. But how did his life become surrounded in tragedy and what caused his seemingly sudden demise? Elodie finds a leather satchel that hides clues to the Radcliffe family's tragic history and leads Elodie down a path she can't help but follow.

I would definitely recommend this book to my friends and think it will be a book which will stay in my memory bank for a while.

I want to thank NetGalley and the Publishers Simon & Schuster Canada and Atria Books for an ebook copy of "The Clockmaker's Daughter" to read and review.

The Clockmaker's Daughter is not the type of book I would normally read, that being said, I enjoyed it immensely. The is not a story of a specific person per say, it is more the story of Birchwood Manor. Everyone's story is woven together through the book to all center at this house. It has murder, mystery, suspense, love, art. Kate Morton has created a book with everything in it you could possible want, and it will keep you guessing at every turn. I would definitely recommend this book.

To read this book you must be a willing witness to the world of the paranormal. The story is about a house centuries old inhabited by an ethereal ghost. We become woven into the tapestry of the many lives all connected through the connection to the home. The writing is superb - no light reading. It infuses your mind with mystical enlightenment. It makes you question immortality and the mysteries of the universe.

First, thank you to Netgalley and Simon and Schuster for my ARC of the Clockmaker’s Daughter by Kate Morton. I have been a fan of Ms. Morton’s work for a long time and this new novel did not disappoint! Told from many points of view spanning decades, the prose was beautiful. The story intricately weaves throughout time from present day to Victorian England and stops in between. At its heart it is a story of love but oh what an intriguing mystery too! I believe Kate Morton has another best seller here and I’m so glad I was able to read this in advance.

First, I have to say that the book cover is absolutely gorgeous. Never judge a book by its cover, but this time you would not be wrong. I love stories which have more than one timeline and encourage the reader to discover the connections across time. I would assume that it is a challenge for an author to make sure that each timeline has a beginning and an end and that anything in between keeps the reader interested. Kate Moron is an expert in multiple timelines novels. This is the third book I have the pleasure of reading from this delightful author and I was not disappointed. The Clockmaker’s Daughter is a tale of love, murder, ghosts, and a lost blue diamond.

During the Summer of 1862, a group of artist friends pervades the Birchwood Manor to practice their arts. Edward Radcliffe is in love with his model Lily Mullington, but he is engaged to be married to Fanny Brown. He plans to quietly break off the engagement, to paint his lover as the Fairy Queen who is part of the folklore related to the manor and to take Lily to America to start a new life. But plans don’t always work the way you want, and a murder shatters his life forever.

A hundred fifty years later, Elodie Winslow discovers a leather satchel which contains Edward’s sketchbook and a picture of a beautiful Victorian lady. The sketches are of a house which Elodie recognized as being the very one her mother used to tell her about in her fairy-tales. Elodie is compelled to find the house and to discover who the lady in the picture is. Only one person really knows what happened in the Summer of 1862. Will she share the secrets?

I want to thank NetGalley and Simon and Schuster Canada for providing me with an Advanced Reader’s Copy. This stunning book will be available at your favourite bookstore on October 9, 2018.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster Canada for allowing me to read an early copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

"All past is present." A simple line that succinctly puts this book into place. What starts out with a old sketch book and photo leads to a ghost story about the life of Birdie, the daughter of a clockmaker, and all those lives who tie in with hers over the years.

This book has a sweeping story line spanning hundreds of years and a multitude of characters interconnected through lineage and actions. The author provides great detail, painting a rich, descriptive picture. She does a beautiful job of connecting all the loose ends together, even small ones that I had forgotten. This is a book for those who love historical touches to their fiction and appreciate an epic story. There are numerous characters and timelines within the lives of many of those characters, making for a challenging read.

As with all Kate Morton books, the writing was beautiful. However, I felt that the book was too detailed and long in places, wishing for the story pace to move along quicker. Despite that feeling, the ending felt rushed. After such time and detail went into the story lines of the historical characters in the book I felt that the current-time characters were left unfinished, with too many unanswered questions.

"There is a wound that never heals in the heart of an abandoned child."

"You're too young to understand, I expect, but when one gets old, all memories have a weight, even the happy ones."

"But guilt, Lucy had learned, was the least rational of emotions."