Review | The Clockmaker's Daughter

Our next book in this 2019 Reading Challenge fell under the "Told from multiple POVs." So, naturally our book was Kate Morton's most recent book.

Title: The Clockmaker's Daughter by Kate Morton

Date Published: October 9th, 2018

Dates Read: January 25 - February 2, 2019

Current Goodreads Rating: 3.8/5

I've been a long time fan of Kate Morton. I know that might be surprising to most of you as I haven't mentioned Morton's other books before, but trust me. I am.

I read Kate Morton's book back when I was in high school. My mom was a big fan of them and, instead of giving away the books, she handed them down to me. Since then I'm not sure where exactly they've gone, but I remember devouring each book late at night hoping that my mom or dad wouldn't wake up and realize that the light in their daughter's room was still on.

Morton does a great job of braiding multiple storylines in different eras together. Each one of her books (The Forgotten Garden, The Secret Keeper, The House at Riverton, and The Lake House among a handful of others I have yet to read) begins with a generations old mystery. Maybe someone's dying grandmother finally decided to share her secret, but passed away before the full story was told. Maybe there is a dilapidated house in the middle of a small, cozy town that once was the height of luxury, but some unknown event caused the family inside to spiral and the house soon followed. Maybe its a murder that was never solved. Regardless of what exactly sets her stories in motion, Morton has a knack for sucking her readers into the mystery and, so far, each book I've read has surprised me in one way or another at that twist ending.

So, how does The Clockmaker's Daughter measure up? Well, its just as full of twists and turns as her previous books, but Morton ups her game one more. Instead of weaving between modern day and one era, Morton includes several different time periods revolving around one house in a small village in the British countryside.

Readers get to meet Elodie, an archivist in modern day London; Edward and Birdie, an artist and his muse, in 1862; Leonard, a WWI survivor and biographer from the early 1920s; Tip and his family, escaping the Blitz. There is a wide cast of characters, something that some readers might (and did according to some of the Goodreads reviews) have trouble following, but the way that each story line intersected helped me keep the stories straight.

The main revolving storyline involves a murder and the theft of the famous Radcliffe Blue. The story that has been universally accepted was that Edward's muse, lovingly nicknamed Birdie, had stolen the Radcliffe Blue (think Titanic) and escaped with her brother to America leaving Edward heartbroken and penniless. What followed were centuries of guilt, regret, and sadness. However, thanks to the ghosts left behind in the house where it all happened, there might be proof that everything isn't as it seems. But I don't want to spoil the enjoyment for you guys.

My take: if you haven't been paying attention, I enjoyed this book. However, there were a couple of things that I did have issues with and mostly it had to do with the first character we're truly introduced to: Elodie.

Elodie's story-line is what kicks this book into gear. She finds the satchel that includes Edward's sketchbook and a picture of the elusive Birdie, but oh my god Elodie is so boring. Her main problem is that she's getting married to a man named Alistair (which side note never marry a man named Alistair. He just sounds like a boring or bad dude. Side side note sorry to any Alistair's that read my blog. You aren't boring or bad). Ok, getting married isn't that bad, but she spends a majority of her chapters telling the readers about different terrible quirks Alistair has and it's pretty strongly implied that Elodie does not even like the dude. In the entirety of the book I think she interacts with him once and its via a phone call. We don't even meet the guy.

I don't expect every female character I read to be this feminine icon, but Elodie was so much the opposite of every other female character in The Clockmaker's Daughter. She kind of falls into this engagement with this man who seems more in love with her famous, dead mother (yeah, you heard me) than Elodie herself. Even Alistair's mother is more interested in this dead woman. Every wedding decision thrown at Elodie is met with indifference and apathy. When she finds this satchel and photo she abandons everything: wedding, fiance, life in London.

It just seemed to me that all of Elodie's relationships were kind of half-assed. She's supposedly in love with this man enough to get engaged to him, but not enough in love to put any effort into planning their wedding. Her mother's death is this event that's described as though it shook the foundations of the family, but, aside from the fact that Elodie mentions her father cries pretty much any time her mother's name is mentioned, she doesn't really feel that loss either. In a book full of so many full, breathing, and rich characters, Elodie's whole story just falls flat for me. Luckily, aside from the first section and a handful of chapters at the end, she doesn't take up too much time in the book so I only have to roll my eyes at Alistair and Elodie's doomed relationships for a little bit.

Final thoughts: This book does have its flaws (don't we all?), but overall I really enjoyed this book. Yes, it took a couple of chapters for me to really get into the story, but the interwoven stories all revolving around one ghost of a memory in one house really sucked me into the story. Honestly, this book felt like a roller coaster. There was an excruciatingly slow build up that crested over the hill and sped toward its conclusion.

Long story short:

• You can have a good book with a lot of characters.

• Apparently someone found that stone in the middle of the ocean

• Dead women can still tell tales

My Rating: 4/5

Up Next: Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi