Scan barcode
A review by happylatitudes
The Secrets Between Us by Louise Douglas
4.0
Louise Douglas is my Summer beach reading for 2021 -- I've raced through four of her novels in a month, but didn't feel inspired to write a review until I finished The Secrets between Us. With clear parallels to Daphne Du Maurier’s classic, Rebecca, and so soon after the new Netflix adaptation of that novel, the plot of Rebecca was fresh in my mind and I couldn't help but notice the clear themes of both books running parallel. In The Secrets Between Us, Alexander and Sarah meet on holiday and they have a lightning-speed romance. Sarah doesn't hesitate to move in with Alexander, albeit as his "housekeeper" to keep up appearances in front of his former in-laws. There are several convenient ploys in the novel -- for example, it’s always useful for this kind of story when you’re somewhere with a crappy phone signal, leaving you isolated from those you need in your time of need. At the same time, it’s nice to have internet access as a possibility, when a good Google search is your first port of call when trying to track down long lost acquaintances who may hold the key to a missing person’s fate.
This is Sarah’s story, but it is also Genevieve’s story, as she was Alexander's first wife, and has mysteriously disappeared. Sarah is seemingly obsessed with Alex’s estranged wife, not helped by the fact that her name is mentioned everywhere she goes. The circumstances under which she left are odd, but not impossible, but with the woman’s family convinced Alex was directly responsible, no one is going to rest until the truth comes out.
There are several other plot similarities to Rebecca -- the scene with the dress, for example, the familiarity of Genevieve's dog, the revelation that Genevieve wasn't the perfect, ideal wife that she was initially presented as to Sarah, and so on... Louise Douglas even mentions Du Maurier in the book, as a nodded acknowledgement of the parallels.
I guessed the novel's outcome around three-quarters of the way through (having read way too many murder mysteries over the past year) but the ending was still gripping and suspenseful.
This is Sarah’s story, but it is also Genevieve’s story, as she was Alexander's first wife, and has mysteriously disappeared. Sarah is seemingly obsessed with Alex’s estranged wife, not helped by the fact that her name is mentioned everywhere she goes. The circumstances under which she left are odd, but not impossible, but with the woman’s family convinced Alex was directly responsible, no one is going to rest until the truth comes out.
There are several other plot similarities to Rebecca -- the scene with the dress, for example, the familiarity of Genevieve's dog, the revelation that Genevieve wasn't the perfect, ideal wife that she was initially presented as to Sarah, and so on... Louise Douglas even mentions Du Maurier in the book, as a nodded acknowledgement of the parallels.
I guessed the novel's outcome around three-quarters of the way through (having read way too many murder mysteries over the past year) but the ending was still gripping and suspenseful.