My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The Misbegotten is a story that tugs at one’s heart for it’s strong portrayal of a number of things. First off, there’s Rachel who decides to get married to Richard Weekes’ with no emotional involvement believing love would follow like in the life of most couples’. Then there is Starling who is an orphan who has centered her life in seeking justice for her adopted sister, Alice. The story moves forward primarily thru these characters. Both Rachel and Starling decide to work together to find the truth of the missing girl Alice whose disappearance has caused excessive grief to Jonathan who has loved her to the extreme. It is the quest of this truth that drives the story but the mystery is only one part of it, the story otherwise encompasses the loneliness, the guilt that can destroy oneself and love in it’s various forms.

This is my first book by Katherine Webb even though it’s been in my TBR pile for such a long time, I never got around to finding a copy. In truth, it was the cover of the book that attracted me in the first place, I am a sucker for anything with a huge mansion that evokes a Gothic feeling. The plight of Jonathan suffering from the aftermaths of the war, so much that he’s hidden himself in a room for almost 12 years shutting out everything , the reader feels the plight of the wounded soldier.
In fact each and every character in the story be it Duncan Weekes’ or Josephine Alleyn arouses compassion.

This is quite a long book with nearly 500 pages and unless you are a fan of historical fiction, it could get boring for some with such detailed description of the war and its effects. But the story is immersive that for a time I lost myself in the world of Rachel, Starling and Alice. Loved this beautiful work by Katherine Webb.



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