Past Secrets
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4.4 • 29 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
The Sunday Times No. 1 paperback bestseller, warm and moving – another gem from the much-loved Cathy Kelly.
Keep a secret too long and it will creep out when you least expect it…
Behind the shining windows and rose-bedecked gardens of Summer Street, there are lots of secrets. There’s the one that hard-working single mother, Faye, hides from her teenage daughter, Amber. And there’s the one that thirty-year-old Maggie hides from herself.
When fiery Amber decides to throw away her future for love, and when Maggie ends up back home looking after her sick mother, their secrets begin to bubble over.
The only person on Summer Street who appears to know all the answers is their friend Christie. Wise and kind, she can see into other people’s hearts to solve their problems. Except that this time, the secrets she’s hidden from her beloved husband and grown up sons suddenly reappear.
When the past comes alive for Maggie, Faye and Christie, they finally have to face it.
Reviews
‘A tear-pricking writer, capable of making you care about her characters … a warm, moving read’ Daily Mail
‘Bursting with emotion, heartache and dreams … realistic and likeable characters that meet life-changing events head on’ Ireland on Sunday
‘Demonstrates her capacity to write observantly and kindly about women and their relationships, lit by occasional laugh-out-loud funny interludes’ Irish Independent
About the author
Cathy Kelly is a number 1 bestselling author around the world. She worked as a journalist before becoming a novelist, and has published 13 bestselling books.
She is also an ambassador for UNICEF in Ireland. She lives in Wicklow with her partner and their twin sons.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Kelly's ninth novel, a cross-generational contemporary romance set in Ireland, is packed with high drama and the emotion to match. At 60, Christie Devlin and her peaceful home and garden are the heart of Dublin's picturesque Summer Street. But when a surprising nook of art teacher Christie's past is unearthed, the 30 fulfilling years Christie has spent with her husband, James, and their family threaten to unravel. Her neighbors, meanwhile, have their own crises to attend to: single mom Faye Reid is horrified when her daughter, Amber, drops out of college to travel with her musician boyfriend, prompting Faye to follow her to try to prevent her from making the same mistake Faye made in her youth. Wounded by an awkward adolescence and a cheating boyfriend, 30-year-old Maggie Maguire wishes she could stop letting her past hold her back from self-acceptance as she returns home to care for her ailing mother. If Kelly's sins are too many peripheral characters, an uneasy transition into Amber's teenage voice and meandering passages that could have been edited out, then they are easily forgiven. Kelly's evocation of mother-daughter relationships shines, and her handle on romance storytelling combined with her characters' feel-good, empowering evolutions make this a satisfying novel.
