A tale within a tale within a tale...
1913: A portmaster on some Australian coast finds a small girl on an English ship that has just arrived in Australia. The little girl has no recollection of her name and is carrying nothing but a small suitcase containing a book of fairy tales. The portmaster has no choice but to bring the small child home. Day after day, he and his childless wife wait to hear news of some family searching for the girl, but no news appear. Eventually they claim her as their own.
Nell grows up to be the apple of her father's eye, the delight of her mother and younger sisters, and one of the most beautiful girls around. But on her 21st birthday, her father chooses to reveal a deep secret: Nell is not their biological daughter.
And she disconnects. Breaks her engagement. Becomes distant from her family. Moves away.
1976: Now 65, Nell finally decides to attempt to trace her true roots. (Yeah, I know. Doesn't it seem like she would have done more of that a lot sooner?) Nell eventually discovers where she is from, but not much else surrounding her mysterious arrival in Australia or why she was abandoned and by whom. Although she wants to go back to England to continue her search, her own daughter leaves her granddaughter, Cassandra, with her for a few weeks. And those weeks turn to years.
2005: After Nell dies, Cassandra learns her grandmother's dreadful (sarcasm on my part) secret and takes up the search. The search leads back to a rich family in England. A rich, young lady named Rose and her cousin Eliza, an author of fairy tales. Cassandra works tirelessly to discover who Eliza is and why she would have taken Rose to another country.
So this is really and truly a tale within a tale within a tale: rotating between Cassandra's continued search for Nell's origins to Nell's own search during 1975 to Eliza's own story at the turn of the century.
And sometimes Eliza's own fairy tales are inserted between these chapters.
It's a lot, right? That's my primary complaint. The story of how little Nell got to Australia is a compelling and worthwhile one, but the narratives that follow Nell and Cassandra as they unravel the mysteries are not. And neither are the fairy tales. And neither are the many side characters that pop up in Cassandra's story. I don't care about Ruby, the daughter of an Australian Cassandra knows, who now lives in England. I don't really care that Cassandra is falling in love with the English gardener. I don't care about the woman who bought Rose's family estate and turned it into a hotel. I just don't care. In fact, I found myself skimming a lot, sometimes skipping pages outright.
All in all I only made it through this 549 page story because Eliza is a compelling character, as is her cousin Rose. Unfortunately, we don't hear nearly enough from them.
Grade: C
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