Grace Bradley is 98, but still as sharp as a razor blade. She is helping a young director who is making a film about a young poet who took his life during a glitzy party at a grand house in the English countryside in the early 1920's. Grace is being consulted to fill in some background detail, as she was a housemaid at Riverton during this time. However, Grace can do more than fill in the background, as she was intimately involved in the lives of the family, in particular, one of the two sisters who were witnesses to the grim event. This family saga is very much in the spirit of Downton Abbey - local village girl is sent to the Big House in the footsteps of her mother who worked there as a young woman. She grows up feeling close to the sisters and begins to share their secrets and maybe uncover some of her own. As you might have gathered, much tragedy ensues, and no one seems to have a very happy life (not helped, of course, by the events of the Great War). Despite its length, The House at Riverton, by Kate Morton felt like a fast read. The action bowls along and I really did care what happened to the characters. This would make a great holiday read - it may be light, but there's more than enough substance to the story and the characters who inhabit it. Whilst there may not be any huge surprises, the quality of the writing is enough to keep the reader interested in this study of the classes of a bygone era.
My STAR rating: THREE.
Formats available: print; unabridged audio download; ebook
Length: 600 print pages.
Price I paid: £0.50.
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