Book Review: THE SECRET KEEPER by Kate Morton

During a summer party at the family farm in the English countryside, sixteen-year-old Laurel Nicolson has escaped to her childhood tree house and is happily dreaming of the future. She spies a stranger coming up the long road to the farm and watches as her mother speaks to him. Before the afternoon is over, Laurel will witness a shocking crime. A crime that challenges everything she knows about her family and especially her mother, Dorothy—her vivacious, loving, nearly perfect mother.

Now, fifty years later, Laurel is a successful and well-regarded actress living in London. The family is gathering at Greenacres farm for Dorothy’s ninetieth birthday. Realizing that this may be her last chance, Laurel searches for answers to the questions that still haunt her from that long-ago day, answers that can only be found in Dorothy’s past.

Dorothy’s story takes the reader from pre–WWII England through the blitz, to the ’60s and beyond. It is the secret history of three strangers from vastly different worlds—Dorothy, Vivien, and Jimmy—who meet by chance in wartime London and whose lives are forever entwined. The Secret Keeper explores longings and dreams and the unexpected consequences they sometimes bring. It is an unforgettable story of lovers and friends, deception and passion that is told—in Morton’s signature style—against a backdrop of events that changed the world.

SOURCE: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher (via NetGalley) in exchange for an honest review.

First Line:

Rural England, a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, a summer's day at the start of the 1960s.

My Thoughts:

THE SECRET KEEPER is my first Kate Morton book, and I was completely wowed! I'm so intrigued by stories with family secrets, and the one revealed in this book is a doozy. It's still at the forefront of my mind days after finishing the book. 

THE SECRET KEEPER begins on an English farm in 1961 when Laurel is a teenager, and she witnesses a violent crime involving her mother Dorothy. The story jumps ahead to 2011, as Laurel and her siblings are gathering for Dorothy's 90th birthday.

The incident 50 years earlier has always haunted Laurel, and she knows with her mother's failing health, time is short to find out why it happened. From there, the story takes readers back and forth between 1941 London during the Blitz when Dorothy and her beau Jimmy meet Vivian, and 2011 as Laurel searches for clues about her mother's past.

Not only was this book a gripping mystery, it was also compelling historical fiction, painting a vivid picture of life in WWII London as bombs were dropped on the city. Heartrending!

THE SECRET KEEPER has a complex plot full of twists and turns that leads to a jaw-dropping conclusion. Kate Morton is an amazing storyteller, and I'm eager to read the rest of her novels. 5-stars! 

Review copy courtesy of NetGalley.