I read Kate Morton’s new novel The Clockmaker’s Daughter when it first came out last month, and I
think it has been one of my favourite reads this year. This is only the second
of her books that I’ve read (the first being The Secret Keeper) and I am definitely keen to read the rest of her
backlist because I love her writing style so much.
In The Clockmaker’s Daughter,
multiple voices across a range of times help us piece together the story of
what happened to a group of young artists who spent the summer of 1862 at a
cottage on the banks of the Thames. In a way, this made me feel like the
modern-day protagonist who works as an archivist – looking for clues to tell
the story behind the items she is cataloguing. I really enjoyed the way that
all of the separate voices came together to resolve the mystery at the centre
of the book, but that there were still some bits left to the imagination, and
there is a definite feeling of something mystical throughout.
One of the things that I loved about The Secret Keeper was how immersive I found the writing – everything is described in a way that makes me feel like I am living in the book (you know that feeling when you look up from a book and are surprised to find you are actually in your own lounge room and not WW2 London?) but without feeling laboured. This one felt the same – even with the frequent switches in POV I found myself completely caught up in the story and couldn’t wait to find out what was going to happen to each character next.
Obviously the other big plus for me with this one was that divine
cover – we all know I’m not above judging a book by its cover and this is one
of my favourites all year!
I gave this one four stars, and would recommend it to lovers of
historical fiction and kind of romantic mysteries. I’d love to know which of
her books people think I should read next!
Xo Bron
***The Clockmaker’s
Daughter***
Out now
from Allen and Unwin
Source: I bought a copy of this one because I
couldn’t live without that cover on my shelf.
Genre: Historical romantic mystery fiction
(I’m not sure if that’s even a thing, but I think you get what I mean haha)