A Secret Kept
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- €5.99
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- €5.99
Publisher Description
It all began with a simple seaside vacation, a brother and sister recapturing their childhood. Antoine thought he had the perfect surprise for his sister Mélanie’s birthday: a weekend by the sea at Noirmoutier Island, where the pair spent many happy childhood summers playing on the beach. But the island’s haunting beauty triggers more than happy memories; it reminds Mélanie of something unexpected and deeply disturbing about their last island summer. When, on the drive home to Paris, she finally summons the courage to reveal what she knows to Antoine, her emotions overcome her and she loses control of the car.
Alone, waiting for news of Mélanie, Antoine reflects on his life: his wife has left him, his teenage children are strangers to him, his job bores him, and his father is an ageing tyrant who still poisons every aspect of his life. How did he end up here? And, more importantly, what was the secret that his sister wanted to tell him?
A Secret Kept by Tatiana de Rosnay plumbs the depths of complex family relationships and the power of a past secret to change everything in the present.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The long-delayed resolution of a French family's mystery electrifies de Rosnay's (Sarah's Key) glimpse at the crushing cost of keeping secrets. Parisian architect Antoine Rey and his sister, M lanie, celebrate her 40th birthday on the island where they vacationed as children with their mother, until she died there in 1974. Upon returning, M lanie is gripped by a shocking repressed memory and loses control of the car. After a brief spell of amnesia, she tells her brother what it was she remembered: their mother had been in love with a woman. As a skeptical Antoine investigates this twist in their mother's past, an upsetting chain of events unfurls: his daughter's best friend drops dead of a heart condition at only 14 years of age; his teenage son is arrested; and he learns that his father is dying of cancer. Antoine gets support in his quest from a new lover, a Harley-riding mortician who teaches him how respecting death helps one to embrace life. This perceptive portrait of a middle-aged man's delayed coming-of-age rates as a seductive, suspenseful, and tr s formidable keeper.
