At times Morton’s pacing could use some tightening. Morton weaves together Jess’ sleuthing with segments of Daniel Miller’s book along with flashbacks from 1959 and moments told from Jess’ estranged mother Polly’s perspective.

Jess knew nothing about the deaths-presumed to be murder-suicide-and while she does feel betrayed that her grandmother kept this from her, she immediately vows to do whatever it takes to learn more about her family. This journalistic work details the story of the shocking deaths in 1959 of Nora’s sister-in-law Isabel and three of Isabel’s children and the disappearance and presumed death of Isabel’s baby. “Help me.He’s going to take her from me.” Jess is determined to seek out answers to help comfort her grandmother, which leads her to find Nora’s copy of a book called As If They Were Asleep by Daniel Miller. Jess is perplexed by this-what could her elderly grandmother have needed so badly that she couldn’t wait for her home aide to help her?-and when she arrives at the hospital, her confusion is heightened by Nora’s panicked utterances: “The pages,” she says. Nora, who raised Jess for much of her childhood, suffered her fall when climbing to the attic. When journalist Jess Turner-Bridges receives a call that her grandmother Nora is in the hospital following a fall, she leaves her chosen home of London and returns to Darling House in Sydney, Australia. A woman discovers that everything she knows about her family is a lie.

Homecoming a novel kate morton