Book Review: The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton

The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Publication date: 2012
Pages: 669
Source: Library
For: More Kate Morton stuff

Summary (from goodreads):

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.

Things I Liked:
This book has a complicated plot filled with all kinds of secrets and mysteries and written in the perfect way to keep you guessing all the way to the ending.  This was signature Kate Morton (though, I'm pretty sure I've only read two of her other books).  It was also quite long.  It was engaging and I couldn't stop reading to find out just what in the world happened all those years ago. I was completely thrown for a loop when some of the stuff was revealed, though I did have an inkling about other things.

Things I Didn't Like:
Yeah, it is dark and creepy and at times kinda depressing.  Also, long.  But, I am really impressed at Morton's skills at weaving a complex web of uncertainties all the way to the end.  And I really have no idea how Laurel could even pretend to feel normal after what she saw.

Read-alikes:
Other Morton books will satisfy your "like this book" craving

BOOK CONTENT RATINGS:
s-factor: !#$
a fair few

mrg-factor: X
some

v-factor: ->->
rather more than I enjoy

Overall rating: ****