One thing you should always remember about Kate Morton (and the one thing I consistently forget) is she's master at the plot twist. And I'm fooled every time--you're near the end and you've got everything figured out (or so you think), and then bam. It all unravels again. 
 Clearly, this happened to me again--despite this now being her fourth book that I've devoured. 
 It's hard to discuss this book without giving everything away. But Laurel, a now-famous actress, is determined to figure out her family's dark history. Her mother, Dorothy, doesn't really talk about her past. Dorothy grew up in WWII London, where bombs were constantly destroying her neighborhood and she took whatever work was available to her. There isn't much opportunity for an orphan girl, but she took what she could get. 
 No one has fond memories of the war, but Laurel suspects that her mother's secrets are more than that. 
 The story is beautifully told. I loved the images of the WWII era, the simplicity of life among a war-ridden London. We learn of Dorothy's experience, little by little, and what formed her into the loving mother Laurel knew growing up. But now, nearing the end of Dorothy's life, Laurel is fighting to put together the pieces she doesn't know--she needs to learn about the Dorothy before, before she became that mother. 
 Sometimes, the plot goes off-track. I love unraveling the mystery, but there's so much other information that I lose my place. While we need to know a character's backstory and a little bit about their love interests and motives, there's often too much backstory. There were parts I had to trudge through just to get back into the actual story. 
 But I like it for the end. I love resolving a mystery, especially one that I had completely wrong the entire time.