Well read, well written, "The Forgotten Garden" is an enjoyable story that takes place in the early 1900s, the mid 1970s, and in 2005. The main character is a writer of fairy tales; the novel itself is a lot like a fairy tale. Thoroughly enchanting. I definitely recommend it.

This is a nicely structured book, but the characters are one-dimensional and virtually interchangeable (nice ones are all nice in the same way, the bad ones all equally bad). The plot and settings seems to owe a awful lot to Daphne du Maurier, the Bronte sisters, and, yes, Frances Hodgson Burnett--author of The Secret Garden. I didn't care for Morton's efforts to inject elements of a ghost story into the novel.

Few books capture me as much as this one. It's one of those rare finds that you simply don't want to end. I found myself wanting to savor each word, each moment of this book.

The story begins in the early 1900's and ends in 2005. The author presents 3 generations and their intriguing involvement in the mysterious disappearance of a little girl.

Don't miss this one.

I adored this book (despite the somewhat odd narration at times). The author has a lovely delicious literary style and I love the interweaving of fairy tales and Victorian melodrama. Anyone who loves this will also love 'The Thirteenth Tale'. Superb

Predictable, familiar story lines with nothing new to offer. Unfortunately, neither engaging characters nor an interesting plot are present in this book, nothing suspenseful or surprising here. Not awful, just not worth the time it took to listen to.

I bought this book on account of the rave reviews, mostly 5's. There was one reviewer who rated it a 1 but I chose to go with the majority. I shold have listened to the lone dissenter. The book was a childs story, maybe woman like it, but not my sort of women. I couldn't get through the first part of the book and am sorry I wasted toime downloading the balance. I have rated it a 1 but if it were posss\ible I would rate it zero. The plot is naive and childish and takes an awful long time to get nowhere. I have bought books that are worse but then I couldn't finish them either. To any intelligent reader/ listener I would recommend DON'T BUT THIS BOOK

I can't believe 1200 people rated this book at 4ish. The characters are dumber than dirt, the situations are unbelievalbe and the whole thing was a long slog to nowhere.

It had all the Victorian tropes that normally I would love, yet seemed like a blurry xerox of these elements rather than a colorful tapestry of them. Oh also there is a Dickensian evil landlady called Mrs. Swindle so evil she made me laugh out loud. Hint: she is NOT supposed out make you laugh out loud.

Something by a contemporary Victorian writer maybe? To remind me why I like this time period because dang I almost forgot.

A gorgeous Australian accent, a fair Cornish accent, a hilarious American accent.

I would take out maybe 500 of the 550 scenes of old people hemming and hawing when asked direct questions. And then I'd take out maybe 49 of the 50 incidences the person talking to them starts thinking about lunch or the carpet or the smell in the room. Oh and I'd probably remove at least 1200 of the 1400 times we are told how magical, silvery and magical Eliza Makepeace is. Oh and I'd tell the author to go ahead and use the phrase "Secret Garden" because she sidesteps it so much it goes into Thesaurus Town territory.

I feel like you should not write a fairy tale and then have every character in the book talk about how elemental and magical and compelling it is or you are begging the reader to disagree. Also this EASILY could have been a short story- figured out the story's "secret" about halfway through and then had to wait for characters to catch up out of like OCD completionism. Just sayin'.

This book made no sense. I could not even get into the book. They went through 3 different generations in like 30 seconds.

This was the first book by this author that I listened to.

It was brokeIn into 3 parts and after the first 2 parts I was frustrated that it was taking so long to get the story finished. I ended up fast-forwarding it to the end just to find out what happened.

I will probably not read another book by this author. Not my style.