I have to admit that when I sat down with Kate Morton's The Distant Hours I was skeptical. After reading The Forgotten Garden and sorta liking but not loving it I thought I wasn't yet ready to get back into the author's world.

Morton definetely has a particular style of writing and building a story: she loves flashbacks and her stories have a fairytale quality. The Distant Hours, like The Forgotten Garden is a big tomb of a book. But length aside, I am not discouraged by a good long read, I was pleasantly surprised by what ended up being a thoroughly enjoyable piece of literature full of suspense that kept me turning the pages.

This story follows Edie Burchill to the decaying Milderhurst Castle, a place her mother once called home, and to the company of the Blythe sisters - twins Percy and Saffy and their younger, not quite right sister Juniper. Edie's story, as she tries to solve the mysteries of the castle and its inhabitants, and to piece together a portion of her mother's past, is woven with flashbacks or glimpses into the lives of the sisters. The story of the women is the most engaging portion of the book and Morton does a good job of building the gothic like quality of the castle and the sisters existence there through intriguing language and description. 

I recommend this book - much better than The Forgotten Garden - if you want to try Morton on for size. She re-does the gothic novel with a lot of suspense, intrigue, and heart. But you have to be prepared to make a commitment to the book. It is definetely a page turner but there are parts - when extensive detail is used - when you have to use the overall urge to know what happens to get you through and there are many pages to turn. I could have shaved off some pages and still been satisfied with the story.