The Secret Keeper
{5/5} “The landscape of one’s childhood was more vibrant than any other. It didn’t matter where it was or what it looked like, the sights and sounds imprinted differently from those encountered later. They became a part of a person, inescapable.”
The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton, published in 2012
When Laurel was 16 she witnesses, from her treehouse, her mother stabbing a man who came to the house. Fifty years later, her mom is dying in the hospital and she goes to see her. She also gets together with her siblings at the old house. Laurel, now a famous actor, has kept the secret from her sisters all these years. What she doesn’t know is why her mother did it.
It’s about tracking down a mystery, and what you’ll do when you lose everything and feel that one person is to blame. It’s also about love, and second chances.
The revelations make perfect sense, including the ultimate one. Fans of Morton’s novels and/or family mysteries will want to check this out.
One more quotation: “It is queer, but my love and longing for the world are always deepened by my absence from it; it’s wondrous, don’t you think, that a person can swing from despair to gleeful hunger and that even during these dark days there is happiness to be found in the smallest things?”
This is the 4th book I’ve read by Morton. I previously reviewed The Clockmaker’s Daughter.