The Distant Hours

by Kate Morton

Edie Burchill and her mother have never been close, but when a long lost letter arrives with the return address of Milderhurst Castle, Kent, printed on its envelope, Edie begins to suspect that her mother's emotional distance masks an old secret. Evacuated from London as a thirteen year old girl, Edie's mother is chosen by the mysterious Juniper Blythe, and taken to live at Millderhurst Castle with the Blythe family. Fifty years later, Edie too is drawn to Milderhurst and the eccentric Sisters Blythe. Old ladies now, the three still live together, the twins nursing Juniper, whose abandonment by her fiance in 1941 plunged her into madness. Inside the decaying castle, Edie begins to unravel her mother's past. But there are other secrets hidden in the stones of Milderhurst Castle, and Edie is about to learn more than she expected. The truth of what happened in the distant hours has been waiting a long time for someone to find it...

• ISBN10: 0230748325
• ISBN13: 9780230748323
• Publish Date: 15 October 2010 (first published 1 January 2010)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 17 July 2013
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Mantle
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 688
• Language: English

Reviews

[Kait ✨]

While this was one of my favourite of Kate Morton’s books in terms of characters, setting, and plot, the pacing dragged significantly for me. The Distant Hours feels familiar to Morton’s other novels thematically, although she engages with the central tenets of each novel in a unique way. While Kate Morton can sometimes feel cliché-ridden, unrealistic, overly descriptive and sometimes has obvious twists, her books are still highly entertaining and always keep me riveted.