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4.1 AVERAGE
4.1 AVERAGE
emotional
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I loved this book. I really enjoy Kate Morton and this is my favorite of hers.
It flips between modern day and the past (mystery that is being unraveled). I was surprised by the ending and loved the characters. The main character Laurel was a bit dull at times but the past characters were all great.
It flips between modern day and the past (mystery that is being unraveled). I was surprised by the ending and loved the characters. The main character Laurel was a bit dull at times but the past characters were all great.
So painfully slow and drawn out. I guessed the twists early on and was just anxious the whole time to get it over with.
This was a great read! It's a long book and it did take a little time to get completely into it but it was so worth it for the 2nd half where the pace picks up and the twists kept me up way too late. I am pretty easy to please when it comes to mysteries, but this ending is one of my all time favorites!
Sometimes a bit confusing with all the different times and characters, but did joy see the plot ending coming.... At all!!!
Brilliant, her best one, actually gasped out loud
WWII Historical fiction is one of my favorite genres and this added the extra element of mystery. No spoilers will be revealed but to say I figured it out at about page 400 and was thrilled with it. Clever plot with brilliant twists, just enough suspense that I had a hard time putting it down.
This story goes back and forth between a modern day daughter struggling with solving her mother's mystery and her mother's story during WWII. I found the story of Dolly and Jimmy and Vivian during WII to be compelling and complicated and downright thrilling at times. Kate Morton is one of my favorite authors for her ability to create such atmosphere and moodiness while keeping me guessing as to the inevitable plot twists. This book is her very typical style and I enjoyed that.
However, I found the modern day story to be boring and the characters to be flat and self absorbed and the search for 'truth' simply wasn't interesting to me. I suspect a large part of that is because I didn't like Laurel, the eldest daughter, who was the focus.
But, I did really enjoy the WWII POV even though I didn't like Dolly. I found her frivolous and spoiled and self absorbed. Jimmy and Vivian were far more interesting to me and I admired their compassion and grit and ability to rise above despite their circumstances.
Overall, I immensely enjoyed it and would have given it 5 stars if not for the "modern day" POV that I didn't like.
This story goes back and forth between a modern day daughter struggling with solving her mother's mystery and her mother's story during WWII. I found the story of Dolly and Jimmy and Vivian during WII to be compelling and complicated and downright thrilling at times. Kate Morton is one of my favorite authors for her ability to create such atmosphere and moodiness while keeping me guessing as to the inevitable plot twists. This book is her very typical style and I enjoyed that.
However, I found the modern day story to be boring and the characters to be flat and self absorbed and the search for 'truth' simply wasn't interesting to me. I suspect a large part of that is because I didn't like Laurel, the eldest daughter, who was the focus.
But, I did really enjoy the WWII POV even though I didn't like Dolly. I found her frivolous and spoiled and self absorbed. Jimmy and Vivian were far more interesting to me and I admired their compassion and grit and ability to rise above despite their circumstances.
Overall, I immensely enjoyed it and would have given it 5 stars if not for the "modern day" POV that I didn't like.
They were the Nicolson girls: Laurel, Rose, Iris and Daphne; a garden of daughters, as Daddy rhapsodized where he'd had a pint too many. Unholy terrors, as Grandma proclaimed after their holiday visits.
The Secret Keeper surprised me with its ambition in terms of its scope and with its depth of feeling, as Kate Morton crafts a historical fiction mystery surrounding Laurel's childhood and her mother, Dorothy. In the past, Laurel is a bored teenager dreaming of her first crush and hiding from her rowdy family in a treehouse. While she is hiding, she witnesses her mother with her baby brother and a stranger coming up with. Her mother kills the stranger, seemingly without any provocation. In the aftermath, Laurel convinces herself that it was an act of self-defense and claims this to the police.
Years have since passed and Laurel has become middle-aged herself. Now, Dorothy now lies ailing in a hospital and Laurel has become a successful actress:
People marvelled at her ability to build characters from the inside out, to submerge herself and disappear beneath the skin of another person, but there was a trick to it; she merely bothered to learn the character's secrets. Laurel knew quite a bit about keeping secrets. She also knew that there was where the real people were found, hiding beneath their black spots.
Laurel knows that her mother is dying and no longer can disclose any of her secrets to her, including even the reason why Dorothy had killed that man. However, having pretended that the incident had never happened all those years ago, Laurel is now seized by a sense of urgency to uncover whatever she can find out about the past and why her mother would have acted in that manner.
Meanwhile, we also read from Dorothy's perspective from the 1940s, as an ambitious young woman in the middle of World War II. Dorothy has few prospects, as her family is not wealthy. However, she has a handsome photographer beau Jimmy, yearns to emulate her glamorous neighbour Vivienne and works as the caretaker for a cantankerous wealthy Lady Gwendolyn and believes that her life will turn out for the better.
There are layers and layers of secrets contained with this book and while it is a lengthy read, I felt that it is definitely worth the read as the characters' personalities refract and come into focus as their secrets are gradually revealed. One of the plot devices involves a book that Vivienne's author husband Henry had fictionalised about their first meeting and their marriage.
Spoiler
It turns out that their marriage is nothing like what it had been portrayed, aside from their stark age difference. Henry had been abusing her for years and Vivienne had an incredibly unhappy childhood, as her entire family had died in an accident when she was a child and she was transplanted from Australia to England for an uncaring uncle to take care of her.As for the secret that Dorothy had been keeping, I kind of guessed it about midway through the book but it was still a satisfying answer.
Spoiler
Vivienne had adopted Dorothy's identity in the aftermath of the Blitz and the stranger that had confronted her was Henry, her former husband. I did think to myself while reading from Dorothy's perspective that there was no way that the same woman would be Laurel's mother, given her self-obsession and manipulation. She had even plotted for Jimmy to seduce Vivienne to get her in trouble with Henry! That speaks to a deplorable level of cruelty that didn't seem to be present in Laurel's understanding of her mother.At the top of her list, though, the thing she valued high above the rest, was his strength of character: Stephen Nicholson had the courage of his convictions; he would never let his lover bend his will and Dorothy liked that; there was a danger, she thought, in the sort of loving that made people act against type.
I just discovered this author this year and I was really hooked to her novels. Kate Morton has become a new genre for sure. Stories about secrets, family, time… incredibly engaging.
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes