The Distant Hours Book

I adored Kate Morton's The House At Riverton and The Forgotten Garden, giving them both 5 stars, but delayed reading The Distant Hours after hearing so many bad reviews about it from people who, like me, loved those earlier books. I finally decided to take the plunge, hoping to disagree with the bad reviews.

Sadly, I don't. The Distant Hours is packed full of unnecessary detail and description. On and on it goes, page after page of long-winded waffle, page after page of no dialogue, no action and no furthering of the plot. I can see that she was trying to create an atmospheric literary piece, but I think she tried too hard to be too clever, entirely at the expense of the actual story. Had this been my first Morton book, it would have also been my last. In fact, had it had been my first, I'd have abandoned it before the half way point.

I stuck with it through 'loyalty' to Morton, and skim-read it in the hope that the 'real' author would eventually appear, and give me her usual tantalising, goose-bump inducing reveal. She did not. When the reveal finally limped in, I just thought, 'yeah, whatever.'

The sad thing is, it could have been so good. It has all the right elements: three mysterious elderly spinster sisters who live in an imposing castle; the memory of their haunted and troubled father; a lover who's been missing for 50 years; a woman who lived in the castle in her teens but has never talked of it since; various secondary characters with hints of their own secrets. It so easily could have been another intriguing, suspenseful, excellent Morton book.

Hugely frustrating.