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| Author Sophia Alexander with the audiobook of Kate Morton's The Clockmaker's Daughter |
The Clockmaker’s Daughter by Kate Morton is a complex, somewhat sad, but delicious ghost story to bask in, restrained in a rather Victorian manner. The story meandered, encompassing protagonists of different eras, but the writing was beautiful, and the author’s characters have a certain poetic refinement that I cherish now more than ever. I adored Joanne Froggatt’s narration, too, which certainly adds to my recommendation of this novel.
At the heart of the story is a mansion in the countryside
where most of the central characters eventually wind up for some period of
their lives—including the ghostly presence of Birdie, though she only flits
through sporadically, at most a faint influence. The whole cast of characters
have their own intricate stories, the fates of several kept dangling until the
very end. There is romance, much of it
bittersweet.
My biggest critique, I suppose, is the meandering nature of
the story, but Kate Morton eventually ties together the disparate stories in a
most satisfying way. This is so well done that I’d retract my criticism… except
that this tendency to skip tracks did cause me to put down the story on more
than one occasion, feeling utterly lost at yet another new storyline. So if you do give this beautiful novel a go,
just keep barreling through, knowing that the strands will all come together
eventually.
This is my first Kate Morton novel, but I anticipate more in
the future. First, though, I may just repeat this one! I don’t tend to repeat novels (at least not within
the same decade), with just a few special exceptions, but I may soon just start this
one over from the beginning, now that I understand the cast of characters and
their relationships to one another better.
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