The Attic will keep you safe.
My real name, no one remembers.
The truth about that summer, no one else knows.
Over 150 years later, Elodie Winslow, a young archivist in London, uncovers a leather satchel containing two seemingly unrelated items: a sepia photograph of an arresting-looking woman in Victorian clothing, and an artist’s sketchbook containing the drawing of a twin-gabled house on the bend of a river.
Why does Birchwood Manor feel so familiar to Elodie? And who is the beautiful woman in the photograph? Will she ever give up her secrets?
Told by multiple voices across time, The Clockmaker's Daughter is a story of murder, mystery and thievery, of art, love and loss. And flowing through its pages like a river, is the voice of a woman who stands outside time, whose name has been forgotten by history, but who has watched it all unfold: Birdie Bell, the clockmaker’s daughter.
This book leaps through time all surrounding this house slash the ghost who haunts it. Though, we start with archivist whose marrying someone she clearly doesn't like. Mainly it's the house and the ghost haunting it Birdie, who had a sad life and now has a sad afterlife. The end. Okay, there' s more to it that. This is about the mystery about who Birdie was and how she died.
My library has this as Historical Fiction > Crime & Thriller, I guess because there don't have mystery section in the Historical bit for some reason. It's a mystery. Crimes happened, not thrilling at all. Aren't genres a beautiful weird thing. It's very slow-paced.
No idea why they went for this title. Yes, her father is a clockmaker but it's not really a big deal. He's not really ever in the book. There are no scenes with him, and him being a clockmaker plays a very small part of the book. It would be like if someone called my life story the Taxi Driver's Child despite dealing with my life now when both of my parents are no longer Taxi drivers.
The ending was kinda asinine. Obviously, with Birdie being a ghost you know she has to die at some point but the way it happens feels so forced, especially with no one realising what is going on. It feels like Morton decided how she wanted the book to go, but then half-arsed.
Her name is made to be such a big deal and it's never revealed publically despite one the character discovering it. Instead, it ends with a weak thing about how cheating is complicated. Sure, in the Victorian times where marriages were mostly about power. A lot of characters end up injured with no memory of how they ended up that way. How convenient.
I'm not gonna lie, I kinda got bored during the end of this, during the kinda epilogue bit. They are so many characters of characters and time periods. This is a long book at 17 Hours 3 minutes, so you do spend a big chunk with all of them. The question is why though? There's no meaningful link up. I thought the book would have ended differently, which would have been more satisfying.
I listened to the audiobook as read by Joanne Froggatt. She does a decent job. Googling her lead me to find out there are only 16 episodes of Dinner Ladies. Watching things randomly on Gold sure leads you to think there's more of something than there really is.
Overall, I gave this book 3/5 stars for Plotful Head-injuries. This book is frustratingly lacklustre at the end. There are questions left in the air that don't make sense at all.
Released: 1 October 2018
Read 15 January 2020, Reviewed January 2020.
Source: Library
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