New York Times bestselling authors Karen White, Beatriz Williams, and Lauren Willig present a masterful collaboration—a rich, multigenerational novel of love and loss that spans half a century…. 1945: When critically wounded Captain Cooper Ravenel is brought to a private hospital on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, young Dr. Kate Schuyler is drawn into a complex mystery that connects three … complex mystery that connects three generations of women in her family to a single extraordinary room in a Gilded Age mansion.
Who is the woman in Captain Ravenel’s miniature portrait who looks so much like Kate? And why is she wearing the ruby pendant handed down to Kate by her mother? In their pursuit of answers, they find themselves drawn into the turbulent stories of Olive Van Alan, driven in the Gilded Age from riches to rags, who hired out as a servant in the very house her father designed, and Lucy Young, who in the Jazz Age came from Brooklyn to Manhattan seeking the father she had never known. But are Kate and Cooper ready for the secrets that will be revealed in the Forgotten Room?
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This book grabbed me from the beginning. Set in 1892, 1920, and 1944 the authors craft a story that weaves the three time periods together. Star-crossed lovers across generations and tales of deceit and regret.
The three W’s (White, Willig and Williams) have done it again! The Forgotten Room is a wonderful collaboration between these three stellar authors, each of them taking a different storyline and era and successfully weaving them together into a lovely story. I’m a huge fan of all three of these authors, and I could not tell who wrote which story, which just shows how seamless the writing is. I have since learned that they like to keep their readers guessing and never reveal who was responsible for which part of the story. You’ll be sorry when it’s over!
A totally wonderful gothic novel. Terrific, seamless, storytelling.
“The eternal persistence of love.” Cooper says this near the end of the book, and it truly is the book’s theme! Three generations, four actually (if you count Olive’s father and Harry’s mother), struggle with “the irresistible pull” (as Lucy calls it) of love that draws them together. I loved this book! I couldn’t put it down. There are three story lines presenting three separate generations of women from one family falling madly in love with three generations of men, all related to one another (but there’s no incest!), in the face of complications: societal norms/expectations, wives, fiancees. And yet love persists. It endures, and it wins in the end.
Wonderful, well written story.
5 stars
Terrific read! Three women, three men, three different time periods, three very different lives, one house, one room, and one necklace tie them together. From the 1890s to the mid 1940s we follow the lives of Olive, Lucy, Kate, Harry, John, Connor, and Prunella. Time and circumstances bring three couples together and apart. Will love win in the end? A beautifully written book by three different authors.
The Forgotten Room
By Karen White, Beatriz Williams, and Lauren Willig
Historical fiction in setting, The Forgotten Room tells the triad tale of Olive, Lucy, and Kate. Their stories—separated by a spilt timeline of about twenty years between each perspective—paints an intricate puzzle of old passions, family ties, and secrets.
All three characters and their love interests play a part in a secret room sequestered away in an old mansion and a painting of a dark-haired woman wearing a ruby pendant. What is it that binds all three women to the forgotten room?
The writers reveal the plot bit by bit, surprising the reader at the very end with the last piece of the puzzle. The Forgotten Room is a well-told tale of diving into the depths of passion come what may vs. the age-old predicament of practically. These scenarios ply against each other, two sides of the same coin; some characters choose one side, while some choose the other. As a reader, you’ll end up questioning which you would choose.
Just finished The Forgotten Room. Three generations of women and their stories which was interesting. It is a little hard to keep straight because because each chapter was about a different one of the three. I have not read many like this but found it a page-turner and couldn’t wait to get to the end. I enjoyed it.
Two time periods, with amazing characters of each generation. Interesting storyline. Great read!
There is so much about this book to love, but my favorite is the weaving of the stories through three seemingly separate incidents. Three amazing authors easily blend their voices into this intriguing, page-turner of a historical women’s fiction novel.
I loved the interconnected stories of 3 women from different generations involved with the hidden room at the top of the stairs of a glorious mansion. Great writing, great characters, true to life, and emotionally charged.
Light, but enjoyable book. A little predictable in its end, but with a few twists and turns.
The book was hard to follow at first, but once you got the sequence of it , it was wonderful. Going back and forth between generations you are not sure who was related to who until the end
Olive and Harry and Lucy and John and Kate and Cooper. Their stories woven intricately and yet so simply together. Love and longing wound through three generations. Secrets and heartache creating a tapestry of raw emotions that would not stop surfacing until they were addressed. Every time I thought a piece of this story was predictable, it would do a little pirouette and add an unexpected nuance. There were layers more than twists. For a moment or two, I thought I might get all the details confused as they were revealed bit by bit, but I never lost track. I loved the richness of the story and the depth of the emotions and the multi-generational telling of the tale of the Pratt mansion and the loves it held. I was prepared to like “The Forgotten Room” as a historical romance, but found myself immersed in a book that totally stole my heart.
Read the entire series, wonderful!
An excellent historical & romantic fictional tale that follows 3 women from different time periods & a certain ruby pendant, the men they become involved with, how they all intersect & lead to an attic room atop the inside of an old mansion. What makes this book unique & fascinating is this big puzzle you are trying to solve in connecting everyone involved. What a ruby gem of a book! Highly recommend – a must read!