During a party at the family farm in the English countryside, sixteen-year-old Laurel Nicolson has escaped to her childhood tree house and is dreaming of the future. She spies a stranger coming up the road and sees her mother speak to him. Before the afternoon is over, Laurel will witness a shocking crime that challenges everything she knows about her family and especially her mother, Dorothy.
Now, fifty years later, Laurel is a successful and well-regarded actress, living in London. She returns to the family farm for Dorothy’s ninetieth birthday and finds herself overwhelmed by questions she has not thought about for decades. From pre-WWII England through the Blitz, to the fifties and beyond, discover the secret history of three strangers from vastly different worlds—Dorothy, Vivien, and Jimmy—who meet by chance in wartime London and whose lives are forever entwined.
Kate Morton grew up in the mountains of southeast Queensland, Australia. She has degrees in Dramatic Art and English Literature and is currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Queensland. Kate lives with her husband and two young sons in Brisbane.
I saw this book several times already on other blogs with teaser Tuesday's and reviews. I have read several of Kate Morton's books and like her style very much. When Simon & Schuster did an action that you could get it for review on Netgalley I grabbed my chance.
The Secret Keeper is a very slow but surprising story. When you expect the story to go one way it takes a different corner and surprises you. Not enough to shock you but it brought a grin to my face every time I was mislead. As I am an avid puzzler with mysteries like these I love to be wrong. What did disturb me in this book was the time switching. Both parts of the story where very intense and I really felt disturbed when I was moving from Dorothy to Laurel or back.
The characters in both times felt different too. I found it more difficult to see the now characters and engage to them compared to the 1940 characters. They where more alive and got more body in the story.
Overall I loved to read this book. It was a very good puzzle with a surprising end.
The Secret Keeper
Author: Kate Morton
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
ISBN-10: 143916309X
ISBN-13: 9781439163092
Pages: 496
Format: eBook
Simon & Schuster: eBook | Hardcover | Trade Paperback
1 reacties:
Write reactiesI read The Distant Hours and I agree, her pacing is very slow. I like the twists and the old-fashioned mystery. This might be one I'll check out from the library but not buy. Lovely review!
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