As Nell Andrews takes her last breaths, she reveals to her granddaughter, Cassandra, a family secret that leaves Cassandra floored. Stranger still is the cottage that she leaves to Cassandra, nestled in a small Cornish village a world away from Cassandra and Nell’s home in Australia. Add on the revelation that Nell was a foundling, found waiting, alone, at the age of four with neither mention nor memory of who she was. Armed with little more than a deed to the land, no past to return to and a mysterious book of fairy tales, Cassandra embarks on a whirlwind journey to answer the question: who was Nell, really?
Back up a century. Eliza Makepeace, newly orphaned and having recently lost her twin brother Sammy, lives in a ramshackle attic above a pawn shop in London. Within her she carries the courage that her mother bestowed upon her before passing – along with a warning to always watch for a bad man who is certain to carry Eliza down a cursed path. When a strange man in pince-nez glasses arrives to take Eliza to Blackhurst Manor, she knows this is the man her mother had warned her about – but anything is better than where she is now, right?
Alternating between present-day England and the England of nearly a hundred years before, Morton weaves a tale that transports the reader to a time that, though different from our present-day reality, carries ongoing themes of love without measure, of the ties that bond, of what really makes a family, of the meaning of home. I return to this book regularly and every time, I discover something new.
Beautifully written with detail that draws you immediately into the story, this book provides an escape that ultimately leaves the reader feeling completely at home.