The House at Riverton

Author: Kate Morton

One-sentence summary: An elderly woman reminisces about her days as a servant in a great English household in the early decades of the twentieth century and the events that led up to a pivotal moment in her life.

B.A.D. Girls Book Rating: 7

Our favorite thing about it: We liked reading and following the story and appreciated how it flowed and held our interest. We also liked the time-period and interesting details of being a servant in a turn of the century British estate household.

Our least favorite thing about it: The story wrapped up quite conveniently and seemed to borrow quite a few plots, characters and other details from many different books we’ve read. It wasn’t as original as we’d like.

Main Topics of Discussion: Servants, Wars, World War II, Relationships, Lies of Omission, Elderly, Unrequited Love, Secrets

Our favorite quote: “Wars make history seem deceptively simple. They provide clear turning points, easy distinctions: before and after, winner and loser, right and wrong. True history, the past, is not like that. It isn’t flat or linear. It has no outline. It is slippery, like liquid; infinite and unknowable, like space. And it is changeable: just when you think you see a pattern, perspective shifts, an alternative vision is proffered, a long-forgotten memory resurfaces.” (p.271)

Notes: We first discussed how pretty much all of us enjoyed reading this book and enjoyed the story-line. Most of us loved the time period and the descriptions of how the world changed over the ninety-plus years of the main character’s life. We were all hanging on as we read to find out what the true secret was as it was revealed on the last few pages of the book. We appreciated the descriptions of war and how it devastated a country, individual families and individuals. The insight into servanthood in an estate during the early twentieth century in England was very interesting.

We did feel that some of the mysteries were hinted at pretty strongly…perhaps on purpose. At least one of us did not connect with the characters very much and we all agreed that the main character wasn’t really the “main character” in the story. The connections made at the end of the book seemed a little trite and we could not believe all the similarities we picked out to other books that we’ve read: Rebecca, The Thirteenth Tale, Atonement, etc.

Memorable Meeting Moments: Our first meeting with Amberly back from the Philippines! We played a welcome-back game with questions about what we did and what she did the past 2 years. We played a spontaneous middle-name game. And we unveiled our new monogrammed tote bags!

What We Ate: Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas, Spanish Rice, Black Bean Salsa, Banana Pudding…ALL recipes from our recipe blog!