Reviews

Secrets of Our House by Rea Frey

bathtubbookworm's review against another edition

emotional inspiring tense fast-paced

4.25

🛁 𝚁𝚎𝚟𝚒𝚎𝚠 🛁

Secrets of our House by Rea Frey

“In sickness and in health.

In lies or deceit.”

Synopsis: Desi thinks that the secret to saving her marriage and getting closer with her daughter is to do what she does best: build and design a home in a sleepy mountain town and move them out there for the summer. However, as unexpected guests arrive and new relationships blossom, the secrets of this family slowly reveal themselves and change their dynamic forever.

If you’re opening this book to read a thriller, I would recommend you reframe your thinking. Do I suggest you put the book down? Absolutely not. But a thrilling family drama is what you’re getting yourself into here - but one that paces like a thriller. A few major events circling a family falling apart but trying their hardest to stay together. A perfect portrait.

I usually find that family dramas and domestic fiction drag for me without some sort of crazy plot line, but Secrets of our House is an exception. I never once felt bored with any of the characters and felt like they were very dynamic. While Ava was the archetype of a teenage best friend and her mother, Lenore, the portrait of a woman whose death looms and she’s reframed her thinking about life because of it - they still managed to be multidimensional characters. I particularly loved and identified with both Jules and Tommy.

A fresh family drama that doesn’t try to hard to be something it’s not, but one you won’t be able to put down. If that’s your cup of tea, be sure to pick this one up. I give Secrets of our House an 8.5/10 bubble baths!🛁📚

mrsboomreads's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional tense medium-paced

3.25

I enjoy this author’s writing style and have loved her past novels. This one just had far too much happening to be believable. I wish there had been half the amount of tragedy or secrets, and really focused on those.

Spoiler: it was completely unbelievable that a person’s arm could be eaten off by a bear, easily reattached in surgery, with no physical impairment just a few months later.

bookmarkedbybecky's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious medium-paced

4.0

Special thanks to @reafrey @stmartinspress and @getredprbooks for the #gifted copy of Secrets Of Our House in exchange for an honest review. 

Desi manipulated events to portray her life and family as happy and successful, sweeping long-buried secrets under the rug.  As the family spends the summer in their new gateway home, the secrets start to unravel, and the strength of the family is tested.  

Calling all fans of Family Drama and Women’s Fiction...this one won't disappoint, so add this to your February TBR! 

I rarely quote lines from books, but I love this one: “Hard is where the good stuff is.”   There's a lot of hard in this book.  

For someone who outwardly appears to have it all together, Desi is a hot mess.  You want to root for Desi and yell at her 

simultaneously. She is self-centered and controlling, never realizing the ripple effect of her lies and need for control.   I wasn't surprised by Desi’s secret, but I enjoyed how Rea Frey slowly unraveled it.  The tension felt real as Desi and her husband Peter struggled with their long-term marriage - love lost in the acts of co-parenting and career building.  Her relationship with her daughter isn't much better - always choosing work over family time.  The emotional contagion of Desi’s actions ripples farther than she could ever imagine.  

Please review the trigger warnings before reading.  Rea Frey successfully showcases both emotional and physical survival. The tragedies devasted me.  And my heart raced as the characters battled the wilderness, so please beware that some scenes are not for faint of heart. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Injury/Injury detail, and Death of parent

sarahsbookstack's review against another edition

challenging emotional sad tense medium-paced

4.0

Desi and he husband Peter and daughter Jules are at their home in the mountains to try and repair their broken marriage (unknown to daughter Jules). Peter and Jules have always been close and he's taught her survivalist ways and how to be safe in the wilderness.

Desi's brother Tommy and former lover Carter both show up unexpectedly. They will both shake loose she secrets that Desi had long held close to her chest.

Jules is falling for a local boy, Will. They have a near death experience but Jules training kicks in and gets them to relative safety. This was a very tense part of the book and I even started to tear up.

I didn't really like Peter. He was so standoffish and I could tell that he never really loved Desi all that much. Desi herself is a little bit of an enigma and I don't always understand the different ways she acted, but I could see her love for her daughter even if they fought or ignored each other more than they got along.