Homecoming
A Novel
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4.2 • 135 Ratings
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- $18.99
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
The highly anticipated new novel from the New York Times and #1 Globe and Mail bestselling author of The Clockmaker’s Daughter, a sweeping saga that begins with a shocking crime that echoes across continents and generations.
Adelaide Hills, Christmas Eve, 1959
At the end of a scorching hot day, beside a creek in the grounds of a grand country house, a local man makes a terrible discovery. Police are called, and the small town of Tambilla becomes embroiled in one of the most baffling murder investigations in the history of South Australia.
Many years later and thousands of miles away, Jess is a journalist in search of a story. Having lived and worked in London for nearly two decades, she now finds herself unemployed and struggling to make ends meet. A phone call summons her back to Sydney, where her beloved grandmother, Nora, who raised Jess when her mother could not, has suffered a fall and is seriously ill in hospital.
At Nora’s house, Jess discovers a true crime book chronicling a long-buried police case: the Turner Family Tragedy of 1959. It is only when Jess skims through its pages that she finds a shocking connection between her own family and this notorious event—a murder mystery that has never been satisfactorily resolved.
An epic story that spans generations, Homecoming asks what we would do for those we love, how we protect the lies we tell, and what it means to come home. Above all, it is an intricate and spellbinding novel from one of the finest writers working today.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Morton (The Clockmaker's Daughter) delivers an eerie epic involving a wealthy family's mysterious deaths in Adelaide Hills, South Australia. It's Christmas Eve 1959, and patriarch Thomas Turner is abroad on business, leaving behind his wife, Isabel, and their four children. One day, neighbor Percy Summers happens upon the family while riding his horse. At first, it appears they're resting on blankets after a swim, but upon closer inspection, he realizes they're dead and that baby Thea is missing from her basket. A painstaking investigation begins, and Percy is grilled by a detective who was brought in from out of town. Morton then cuts to 2018 as journalist Jess Turner leaves her London home to travel back to Adelaide after her grandmother, Nora, injures herself in a bad fall. At Nora's house, she finds an old book about the unresolved Turner deaths, which Jess never knew about, and discovers the family's connection to her own. Jess's gripping inquiry into what happened brings up staggering revelations. Along the way, there are beautiful descriptions of the region's landscape and canny insights into the neighborhood's tight-knit community. This is Morton's best yet.
Customer Reviews
Complex, detailed, thought provoking
HOMECOMING by Kate Morton is an adult, historical fiction, mystery thriller focusing on one family, two distinct time lines 1959 and 2018, and several intersecting memories, reflections, journals and books following in the aftermath of the murder of an entire family.
Told in nine parts, from several third person perspectives, numerous timelines as well as a novel recounting what happened years before, HOMECOMING follows UK journalist Jessica Turner-Bridges in 2018 as she is tasked with returning to Australia in the wake of her beloved grandmother’s fall but upon her arrival Jessica begins to unravel a dark, family secret revealing the 1959 murder of a not so distant family she knew nothing about. When Jess was a child, her mother Polly walked away from her only daughter, leaving her in the care of her grandmother Nora Turner-Bridges, and the two have been estranged ever since. Fast forward to present day, Jessica battles between head and heart when her ailing grandmother’s strange utterances and cries prior to death, reveal a dark family secret that immediately pushes Jessica to uncover the truth, a truth about the murders connected to her past.
HOMECOMING is a complex, detailed, thought provoking and powerful story of secrets and lies, family and relationships, betrayal and acceptance. The world building is intricate and exhaustive, meandering through sixty years of secrets and rumors, secrets that reveal a troubling past predicated upon murder and deception. The premise is expository and tangible; the characters are numerous, trouble and looking for answers.