The Gates of Rutherford
By Elizabeth Cooke
Published by Berkeley, September 1, 2015
Purchased and Read on Amazon Kindle
Rating: Three Stars (out of five)
The Gates of
Rutherford is the third in Elizabeth Cooke’s series of novels about the
fictional English estate Rutherford Park.
Like Rutherford Park (2013)
and The Wild Dark Flowers (2014), it
takes us into the world of the aristocratic Cavendish family, their servants,
and others with whom they come in contact during the tumultuous years surrounding World War I.
I was very excited for the release of this novel. I’ve been waiting for it since last summer,
when I read the sample in the back of The
Wild Dark Flowers (Note to publishers: if you’re going to keep your readers
waiting for a year, skip the sample—it’s just mean!). For some reason, though,
this book fell flat. Maybe too much time
has passed since I read the last book or maybe my expectations were just too
high, but I was disappointed.
I think the problem lies in the (lack of) depth in both plot
and characterization; there are many characters
and plotlines in this book. The most
compelling story centers on the younger Cavendish daughter Charlotte, who
rushes into marriage, regrets it, and discovers important truths about herself. We also spend considerable time with various characters
on the warfront in France and see how the war impacts sweethearts and prisoners
on the homefront in England. In one way
or another, the stories all connect via Rutherford, but some of them, such as
the German prisoner’s story, aren’t tied in very thoroughly. Because there are so many characters, we
don’t spend much time with any of them, so some of the stories are not well fleshed-out.
How much I enjoy a book usually comes down to how much I
care about the characters. In The Gates of Rutherford, I cared about
Charlotte, but I suspect that’s because I got to know her in the earlier books,
not because of Cooke’s characterization here.
This was even more true for Charlotte’s brother Harry and family
retainer Jack Armitage, both of whom are fighting in the war. Harry was frequently annoying here and we
learned little about Jack except that he cares for horses and for Louisa Cavendish
(Charlotte’s sister). Had Gates been my only encounter with either
character, I would have little reason beyond basic human decency to care
whether they lived or died.
Ultimately, I liked learning more about what happened to the
Cavendishes and their household, and I would certainly read another book in
this series, if only to find out how Charlotte’s story progresses and how the
family handles a major event at the end of Gates. For Cooke’s existing fans, this was a good if
not stellar entry in the series. I
doubt, however, that it will draw a lot of new readers to the series.
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