Its the early 1900's and at Riverton, the servants keep to their own and let their "uppers" rule pretty much everything. One servant in particular, is Grace, who early on starts serving the younger daughters of the family and grows close to them. Or as close as a servant can. One of the sisters, Hannah, she stays with for years as a ladies maid and helps her cover secrets. Including what really happened that night a famous poet died. The story follows Grace and the family for many years, as they reach new steps in their lives.
I couldn't connect to any of the characters. There just wasn't enough there to make them real to me. And their lives were very foreign from mine, which normally doesn't matter with book characters, but for some reason it did with these. Even the main character of the book, Grace, who leads us through this story, she was more telling their stories than her own and I couldn't relate to her either. She seemed nice and loyal enough, but not interesting.
The pace was very slow. And somewhat jumpy as we went from the present to the past through Grace's eyes. She tended to relate a lot that wasn't even the main premise of the book. More memories than anything. It wasn't terribly written. In fact, it had a nice flow to it, but a slow one. The elements of the time seem to be spot on, so you can tell the author did the research. And there's nothing really offensive in this book in regards to sex, cussing, etc.
I'm not sure if I'd read anything else by this author. It just didn't grab me.
The House at Riverton
Copyright 2006
470 pages
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