To a certain extent, you know what you’re getting with a Kate Morton novel—a split time-frame story with family secrets revealed. The storytelling is always very well done, and more often than not, the story is engrossing. Homecoming is no different.
On Christmas Eve, 1959, Percy Summers is riding past Halcyon, the estate in the Adelaide Hills recently purchased by Thomas Turner, when he trespasses to water his horse in the river. By the river, he finds Isabel Turner and her children apparently asleep near the remains of a picnic. Only they’re not asleep. In his shock, Percy fails to notice a basket hanging from a tree—where Isabel put her baby. Later, everyone realizes the baby is missing.
In 2018 London, Jess is summoned home to Sydney because her grandmother, Nora Turner-Bridges, is seriously ill, having fallen while trying to go up to her attic. Jess, a currently unemployed journalist, has not been home in 20 years, but it was her grandmother who raised her.
Nora has told Jess stories about her brother Thomas, but it is not until she begins looking through Nora’s things for a letter Nora’s caregiver said upset her that she learns Thomas had a house in the Adelaide Hills where his family was killed when he was abroad. Jess can’t believe Nora never told her about this. In fact, she finds a book about the crime in Nora’s bedroom.
While Jess investigates the old crime, we learn about it from flashes back and from the book she found, which is contained in its entirety. For me, this was an unfortunate choice that made the slow unwrapping of the plot more artificial, particularly because it is far too short to really be a book. However, I got used to it.
There were several big mysteries wrapped within this crime, but the two big ones are, what happened to the baby? and did Isabel poison her family? I was fairly sure I knew the answers to both early on, but I didn’t guess the details or complications. In all, I felt that this novel, while not my absolute favorite of Morton’s books, was right up there.
What? Me Read? 
I enjoyed this one too, although it’s not my favourite either. I guessed some of the secrets but not all of them.
Yes. I knew right away what happened to the baby, but not who poisoned the family or why until the end.
I love Kate Morton and thought I had read this one. Obviously not, since I don’t recognise the story. One more to look forward to.
I just recently came out here, but it probable came out earlier in Australia and the U. K.
I just added this book to my TBR after reading another blogger’s review of it. It sounds so good! I definitely need to read it! :)
It’s pretty good. Her The Forgotten Garden is still my favorite.
I just need to start reading her books. I’ve heard so many good things about them!
They are all stand-alone, so you could start with any one.