Name: Homecoming
Rating: 4.59375 (8 reviews)
ISBN: 9780063020894

Kate Morton

A Novel

Homecoming

Gemma McCarthy

It would be a celebration of ubiquity of stories and all those unseen parallels that threaded together to form the framework of our lives. How many points of interest there must be - some small and intimate, others more exceptional - hiding in the dusty stairwells of the city

Jess had been that young girl once, twenty years before. She knew about the excitement on the other side of the gate; the first taste of real freedom, the thrilling sense of being, at last, in control of one's own destiny.

'Someone I used to know a long time ago told me once that fear is the doorway to opportunity…’

Jess's first reaction was embarrassment at having entered the wrong room. This frail old woman with skin so thin i was transparent could not be Nora. Nora was full of life: when she entered a room, people turned to see what had just happened. This person, this imposter, took up no space at all; her body was so tiny, her face in repose so old. 

She wished she d brought a book. Ordınarily, she didn't go anywhere without one.

Words, Jess had observed, could be as tricky as people: seeming to say one thing, when all the while another, secret meaning lay beneath the surface.

 No longer a stranger, she was a woman with a favourite teacup. A transplant to a different country, something Jess well understood: belonging, but never quite fully, while another place, far, far away, maintained a stubborn claim as ‘home'.

Jess's denial of their shared moment made Polly feel, in that moment, completely alone in the world.

Home, she'd realised, wasn't a place or a time or a person, though it could be any and all of those things; home was a feeling, a sense of being complete. The opposite of ‘home' wasn't 'away', it was ‘lonely'

“Are you with me?” Polly was searching Jess's face, waiting tor an answer. Jess gave a nod and smiled. “I am.”

Wow. What an incredible read. It was genuinely a pleasure to read and experience this story and by the end I felt so attached to it - as if I had been the one to discover everything that happened.

I loved the lay out of this book, being told in a dual timeline as well as having chapters of another book (relevant to the storyline) nested between the ‘regular chapters’. It was such a unique way to be able to gain extra context or have things revealed to us/the characters. 

To me the ending was exactly what I had hoped for. There was a (slightly predictable by the time I got to it) twist that nevertheless I felt was absolutely perfect to sum up the story. 

I adored Morton’s writing and I will definitely be picking up other things that she has written in the future!!

Wow. What an incredible read. It was genuinely a pleasure to read and experience this story and by the end I felt so attached to it - as if I had been the one to discover everything that happened.

I loved the lay out of this book, being told in a dual timeline as well as having chapters of another book (relevant to the storyline) nested between the ‘regular chapters’. It was such a unique way to be able to gain extra context or have things revealed to us/the characters. 

To me the ending was exactly what I had hoped for. There was a (slightly predictable by the time I got to it) twist that nevertheless I felt was absolutely perfect to sum up the story. 

I adored Morton’s writing and I will definitely be picking up other things that she has written in the future!!

This is a beautiful historical fiction story with the typical elements in all of Morton's books: a dual timeline, family secrets, and a big, rambling house. A woman in 2018 returns home to look after her ill grandmother and finds out that her family is tied to an unsolved murder/suicide from 1959. Morton's books are slow and a bit meandering but beautifully written. Sink into them and enjoy.

Homecoming A Novel

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