The Clockmaker's Daughter

From the bestselling author of The House at Riverton and The Secret Keeper, Kate Morton brings us her dazzling sixth novel, The Clockmaker's Daughter. My father called me Birdie; he said I was his little bird. Others knew me as his child, the clockmaker's daughter. Edward called me his muse, his destiny. I am remembered as a thief, an imposter, a girl who rose above her station, who was not chaste. My real name, no one remembers. The truth about that summer, no one else knows. Summer, 1862. A group of young artists led by the passionate and talented Edward Radcliffe descends upon Birchwood Manor in rural Oxfordshire. Their plan: to spend a secluded summer month in a haze of inspiration and creativity. But by the time their stay is over, one woman has been shot dead while another has disappeared; a priceless heirloom - the Radcliffe Blue Diamond - is missing; and Edward Radcliffe's life is in ruins. Over one-hundred-and-fifty 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? The Clockmaker's Daughter is a story of murder, mystery and thievery. It is a book haunted by beautiful ghosts and long-kept secrets, for every visitor to Birchwood perceives a trace of what was lost in the house, together with the consolations of enduring love. And, flowing through its pages like a river, is the voice of a woman who stands outside of time, whose name has been forgotten by history, but who has watched it all unfold. Birdie Bell, the clockmaker's daughter.