Friday 30 November 2012

The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton - Book Review

Title: The Secret Keeper
Author: Kate Morton
Publisher: Atria
Publication Date: October 2012
Pages: 480
Format: E-Book - PDF
Genre: Literary Fiction/Historical
Source: ARC via NetGalley



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1961 England. Laurel Nicolson is sixteen years old, dreaming alone in her childhood tree house during a family celebration at their home, Green Acres Farm. She spies a stranger coming up the long road to the farm and then observes her mother, Dorothy, speaking to him. And then she witnesses a crime.

Fifty years later, Laurel is a successful and well-regarded actress, living in London. She returns to Green Acres for Dorothy’s ninetieth birthday and finds herself overwhelmed by memories and questions she has not thought about for decades. She decides to find out the truth about the events of that summer day and lay to rest her own feelings of guilt. One photograph, of her mother and a woman Laurel has never met, called Vivian, is her first clue.

The Secret Keeper explores longings and dreams, the lengths some people go to fulfill them, and the strange consequences they sometimes have. It is a story of lovers, friends, dreamers and schemers, play-acting and deception told against a backdrop of events that changed the world.
(Goodreads Synopsis)



This is my first time venturing into the world of Kate Morton and, based on this experience, I would definitely do so again.

Morton's prose style is addictive, the story weaving here and there in a way that at first seems pointless or confused, but which, by the end, makes perfect sense as all those loose ends are neatly tied up in a very satisfying conclusion.

Her characters really do come to life on the page and the reader is absolutely drawn into their world and their stories. The shifting between past and present was beautifully handled and the separate strands of the tale were beautifully woven together.

All in all, this was an intensely satisfying read and one I would have no qualms about recommended to fans of literary and historical fiction.


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