Summary
Living on her family's idyllic lakeside estate in Cornwall, England, Alice Edevane is a bright, inquisitive and precociously talented 16-year-old who loves to write stories.
One midsummer's eve, after a beautiful party drawing hundreds of guests to the estate has ended, the Edevanes discover that their youngest child, 11-month-old Theo, has vanished without a trace. He is never found, and the family is torn apart and the house abandoned.
Decades later, Alice is living in London, having enjoyed a long successful career as a novelist. Miles away, Sadie Sparrow, a young detective in the London police force, is staying at her grandfather's house in Cornwall. While out walking one day, she stumbles upon the old Edevane estate - now crumbling and covered with vines. Her curiosity is sparked, setting off a series of events that will bring her and Alice together and reveal shocking truths about a past long gone...yet more present than ever.
Kate Morton was born in South Australia in 1976. She earned a degree in speech and drama from Trinity College London, an English literature degree from the University of Queensland, and a master's degree focusing on tragedy in Victorian literature from the University of Queensland. She also completed a summer Shakespeare course at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. She is currently enrolled in a Ph.D. program researching contemporary novels that marry elements of gothic and mystery fiction.
She won the Australian Book Industry Award for General Fiction Book of the Year in 2007 for her debut novel, The Shifting Fog, also known as The House at Riverton. Her other books include The Distant Hours, and The Forgotten Garden, which won the Australian Book Industry Award for General Fiction Book of the Year in 2009. Her books The Secret Keeper and The Lake House were New York Times bestsellers.
(Bowker Author Biography)