The Secret Keeper

by

Kate MORTON

496 pages

Publication date:

by Atria Books
(Simon & Schuster imprint),
on October 16th 2012

Ebook provided
by Edelweiss
& Atria Books/Simon & Schuster

THIS BOOK COUNTS FOR THE FOLLOWING READING CHALLENGES

 

MY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS BOOK

Let’s start with a book recipe today.

Our main ingredients are:

• 2 countries, let’s say: Australia and England

• 1 family, with 2 or 3 generations of women with strong characters

• family secrets and memories

• important spices: family ties, friendship, love

• a touch of murder, mystery, and romance.

Best cooked in layers, be sure to alternate between each of the following layers:

• 1 layer during WWII

• another layer later, the 60s if you wish

• and a later one, in the 21st century.

This will add an exquisite touch of surprise and suspense, as your reading taste will have to adjust continuously to different experiences.

The baking time depends on your reading speed, the best being to just shut the door and stop all over activity until you have swallowed up the whole delicious dish.

How should you call it, by the way? I’ll call it Surprise à la Morton!

If you have already read The Forgotten Garden, you may think I’m talking about that book. I’m not. And what’s really uniquely and geniously unbelievable with Kate Morton, is that she manages to use again all these ingredients, cook them in the same way, and offer you a very different book: The Secret Keeper. What is common to them is that it is fabulously good, and I suggest you drop everything,  go and get it.

Laurel, a teenager, sees one day her mother Dorothy do something totally unexpected. Only near the end of her mother’s life will she, and the reader with her, understands what she did and why.

There are lots of twists and turns in this story, until the very end. I had to reread some lines near the end, thinking I had read them wrong, and then the wow of: how did Morton do that? I didn’t see it coming.

The historical novel lovers will enjoy the background of the second world war in England, as several characters are actively helping in canteens and hospitals.

Morton has a gift at describing emotions and characters, whether they are children or mature adults. Her writing goes in depth while always flowing and drawing you irresistibly along.

WHAT IS IT ABOUT

From the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of The Distant Hours, The Forgotten Garden, and The House at Riverton, a spellbinding new novel filled with mystery, thievery, murder, and enduring love. During a summer party at the family farm in the English countryside, sixteen-year-old Laurel Nicolson has escaped to her childhood tree house and is happily dreaming of the future. She spies a stranger coming up the long road to the farm and watches as her mother speaks to him. Before the afternoon is over, Laurel will witness a shocking crime. A crime that challenges everything she knows about her family and especially her mother, Dorothy—her vivacious, loving, nearly perfect mother. Now, fifty years later, Laurel is a successful and well-regarded actress living in London. The family is gathering at Greenacres farm for Dorothy’s ninetieth birthday. Realizing that this may be her last chance, Laurel searches for answers to the questions that still haunt her from that long-ago day, answers that can only be found in Dorothy’s past. Dorothy’s story takes the reader from pre–WWII England through the blitz, to the ’60s and beyond. It is 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. The Secret Keeper explores longings and dreams and the unexpected consequences they sometimes bring. It is an unforgettable story of lovers and friends, deception and passion that is told—in Morton’s signature style—against a backdrop of events that changed the world. [synopsis by the publisher].

READ AN EXCERPT!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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.
Kate Morton’s books have been published in 31 countries. The House at Riverton was a Sunday Times #1 bestseller in the UK in 2007 and a New York Times bestseller in 2008. The Shifting Fog (know The House of Riverton) won General Fiction Book of the Year at the 2007 Australian Book Industry Awards. Was nominated for Most Popular Book at the British Book Awards in 2008. Her second book, The Forgotten Garden, was a #1 bestseller in Australia and a Sunday Times #1 bestseller in the UK in 2008.
Visit Kate Morton’s official page.

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COME AND JOIN ME IN A READ-ALONG OF
THE HOUSE AT RIVERTON
BY KATE MORTON