The Forgotten Room by Karen White, Beatriz Williams, and Lauren Willig

Written by three authors, this book has three related love stories in three different time periods.  Olive lives in the 1890’s, her daughter Lucy is in 1920, and her granddaughter Kate is in 1944.  All are connected to a grand house in New York City.  Olive’s father was an architect and he designed the mansion for the rich Pratt family.  She went to work as a housemaid there after her father’s death.  Mr. Pratt had refused to pay him, and Olive’s middle class family had slipped toward poverty.  Olive is determined to find proof that her father was cheated. 

                                                                                                           

Lucy is a secretary in a law office.  Her mother’s dying words have left her confused and she is trying to understand what she meant.  Kate is a doctor in a world where it is still an unusual career for a woman, but doctors are in short supply during the war.  The lovely Pratt mansion has been turned into a hospital.  Two generations are trying to untangle what happened in the previous generation.  It can get a little confusing.  (I found peeking ahead helpful.)  In the end it all becomes clear.  If you have read books by any of these authors, it is fun to try to guess which parts they each wrote.  

Reviewed by Fiona Swift

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