The House at Riverton - Kate Morton

The House at Riverton is a deep, brooding and gut-wrenching novel about how the choices we make for love can shape families, fate and history. Weaving time frames between 1914 and 1924 and one woman's memories in 1999, the novel exposes how loyalty, love and family ties can transgress right and wrong, truth and fiction.

The novel's narrator is Grace Bradley, a 98-year-old woman in a residential home, who was a maid at The House of Riverton as a young woman. Grace is visited by a filmmaker who is making a film about the suicide of war poet Robbie Hunter in 1924, a suicide Grace witnessed. As Grace remembers that fateful day, she slowly reveals a tragic secret she has hidden from history.

A beautifully plotted novel, it is in its characterisation that The House of Riverton comes into its own. From Grace, the maid loyal to the end, to Robbie and Alfred, who are changed and battered by the horrors of war. The Hartford sisters are beautiful, privileged and polar opposites. Hannah is an intelligent, wilful suffragette, determined to have an independent life on an equal footing to a man; Emmeline is gorgeous, feminine and traditional, desperate to marry well.

But as the novel unfolds, the sisters fates are flipped. Hannah finds herself trapped in a loveless marriage, stifled and suffocated by her husband's patriarchal, class-obssessed family. A few years younger, Emmeline managed to carve out her independence following the death of their father, able to smoke, drink and take lovers. The tensions of class and social norms threaten, stifle and forbid many of the relationships throughout the novel, leading to many unhappy endings.

But the relationships between the characters show the different types, depths and strengths of love. Reunited after the war, Hannah and Robbie are besotted with each other, seemingly willing to go to any lengths to be together. But Hannah's love for her family ultimately dooms their fate. Grace discovers a secret tying her to Hannah and, when she finds true love with Alfred, allows it to pass her by to remain loyal. Even the Hartford sisters' father Frederick has his own secret about love, which ultimately led to his lover's doom.

In its predominantly post-war setting, The House at Riverton recreates the psychological aftermath of World War One. Grace and Hannah find the men they love are changed, hardened and damaged by the war, tending towards a cold-bloodedness they can barely understand. And the men who survived are the lucky ones, with many men wiped out in he novel. Hannah and Emmeline's brother David and their uncle Lord Ashby are annhilated by the war, wiping out two generations of the Hartford family. Lord Ashby's pregnant widow Jemima is left to deliver their baby alone after years of tragedy, losing two sons before her husband.

In its sections in 1999, The House at Riverton mirrors the servant/master relationship between Sylvia and Grace. Unlike Grace, as a care home assistant Sylvia doesn't need to give the same level of servitude. She goes beyond her duty and is close to Grace, but she also leaves her alone at times and doesn't bend to her every demand. The film of the events at Riverton also acts as a mirror to the lies surrounding what happened. It reveals history's perception of what happens and how the so-called events are bent for the purposes of fiction. While Grace's version of events are bent to protect the Hartford family, the film's version is changed to make a better story.

While it is atmospheric, well plotted and beautifully realised, The House at Riverton isn't as much of a mystery as Morton's other novel, The Forgotten Garden. I worked out much of the twists and turns hundreds of pages in advance, unlike the narrative of The Forgotten Garden. But Morton's writing and characterisation still make it a can't-put-down read till the end.

A stunning and heartbreaking read, The House at Riverton invokes a critical time in British class and social history to show how everlasting love and loyalty can be.

My next read: The Virgin Blue by Tracy Chevalier