The secrets she keeps : a novel /
Material type: TextPublisher: New York : Scribner, 2017Edition: First Scribner hardcover editionDescription: 368 pagesContent type:- text
- unmediated
- volume
- 9781501170317 (hardback)
- 1501170317 (hardback)
- 823/.92 23
- PR6118.O26 S43 2017
- FIC030000 | FIC031000 | FIC044000
Item type | Current library | Home library | Collection | Call number | Copy number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Standard Loan | Calispel Valley Library Adult Fiction | Calispel Valley Library | Book | ROBOTHA (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | Available | 50610020792904 | ||||
Standard Loan | Hayden Library Adult Fiction | Hayden Library | Book | ROBOTHA (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Available | 50610020706110 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
"Two terrific female characters, both with secrets. Add Michael Robotham's clean prose and whipcrack pacing. The result? A book you won't be able to put down, although you may occasionally want to hide your eyes." --Stephen King
"A premium delivery." -- People
Meghan doesn't know Agatha, but Agatha knows Meghan. And the one thing Agatha looks forward to each day is catching a glimpse of her, the effortlessly chic customer at the grocery store where she works stocking shelves. Meghan has it all: two adorable children, a handsome and successful husband, a happy marriage, a beautiful house, and a popular parenting blog that Agatha reads with devotion each night as she waits for her absent boyfriend, the father of the baby growing inside her, to return her calls.
Yet if Agatha could look beyond the gloss and trappings of Meghan's "perfect life," she'd see the flaws and doubts. Meghan has her secrets too, especially one that she dare not ever tell. Soon the lives of these two women will collide in the most spellbinding and intimate of ways, until their secrets are exposed by one shocking act that cannot be undone. From internationally bestselling author Michael Robotham, The Secrets She Keeps is a dark, exquisite, and twisted page-turner so full of surprises, you'll find it impossible to put down.
"In the bestselling tradition of The Girl on the Train and In a Dark, Dark Wood, from the internationally bestselling author whom Stephen King called "an absolute master" of the psychological thriller, comes a riveting suspense novel about the unlikely friendship between two pregnant women that asks: how far would you go to create the perfect family? Agatha is pregnant and works part-time stocking shelves at a grocery store in a ritzy London suburb, counting down the days until her baby is due. As the hours of her shifts creep by in increasing discomfort, the one thing she looks forward to at work is catching a glimpse of Meghan, the effortlessly chic customer whose elegant lifestyle dazzles her. Meghan has it all: two perfect children, a handsome husband, a happy marriage, a stylish group of friends, and she writes perfectly droll confessional posts on her popular parenting blog--posts that Agatha reads with devotion each night as she waits for her absent boyfriend, the father of her baby, to maybe return her calls. When Agatha learns that Meghan is pregnant again, and that their due dates fall within the same month, she finally musters up the courage to speak to her, thrilled that they now have the ordeal of childbearing in common. Little does Meghan know that the mundane exchange she has with a grocery store employee during a hurried afternoon shopping trip is about to change the course of her not-so-perfect life forever
Excerpt provided by Syndetics
Reviews provided by Syndetics
Publishers Weekly Review
Set in London, this emotionally charged domestic thriller from Edgar-finalist Robotham (Life or Death) sets up dueling narratives between part-time supermarket shelf stocker Agatha and her frequent customer, Meg. Both women are in their third trimester of pregnancy-but that's where the similarities end. Beautiful, elegant Meg has two perfect children and a handsome and successful husband. Agatha's life has been filled with horror and heartbreak: she's been raped, been forced to give a child up for adoption, suffered a miscarriage, divorced, and watched her young half-brother die after being hit by a car. Both mothers-to-be are hiding dark secrets, and when Meg's baby is stolen just hours after being born, the media frenzy that ensues threatens to expose Agatha and Meg's respective transgressions and destroy their lives. Despite the disturbing subject matter, Robotham's narrative is intimate and insightful. Brilliantly rendered characters, relentless tension, and numerous plot twists make this a winner. Agent: Richard Pine, Inkwell Management. (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.Kirkus Book Review
Robotham, best known for his gritty Joe O'Loughlin crime thrillers (Close Your Eyes, 2016, etc.), makes a successful literary departure in this engrossing psychological thriller focusing on two women and the dark places their relationship leads.Every day, Agatha watches Meg from the window of the London grocery store where she works. Meg is pregnant, beautiful, and privileged, with a handsome husband, two lively children, and a perfect homeand a popular blog where she memorializes it all. For Agatha, who wants a life like Meg's and instead comes home to an empty and shabby apartment, life would be infinitely better if she could lure Hayden back. A communications technician in the Royal Navy, Hayden dumped her when he deployed and now wants nothing to do with her, but Agatha has yet to tell him that she's pregnant, due in early December, as is Meg. Meanwhile, Meg's husband, Jack, a TV sports journalist, has been less than enthusiastic about Meg's current pregnancy, and their marriagedespite what Agatha thinksis far from perfect. Meg is also hiding a secret: she slept with a family friend and former lover, Simon, following a big fight with Jack. Agatha takes the opportunity of their joint pregnancies to talk to Meg one day, and they soon grow better acquainted, but Agatha keeps Meg in the dark when it comes to her own troubled past as well as the real reason she and Hayden aren't together and why having a baby is so important to her. Told in Agatha's and Meg's alternating, distinct first-person voices, the story of how the women's lives overlap as Meg's marriage and Agatha's life both unravel starts with a gradual glimpse into the two women's worlds, then escalates into something much more sinister. Robotham captures the physical misery that often characterizes late-term pregnancies and writes convincingly in a female voice, but where this book excels is in the increasing sense of threat he crafts so well. With its interestingly imperfect characters and escalating sense of urgency, this novel will keep you reading as fast as you can. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.Author notes provided by Syndetics
Michael Robotham was born in Australia in 1960. In 1979, he moved to Sydney and became a cadet journalist on an afternoon newspaper. He spent the next fourteen years working for newspapers in Australia, Europe, Africa and America. As a senior feature writer for the United Kingdom's Mail on Sunday, he was among the first people to view the letters and diaries of Czar Nicholas II and his wife Empress Alexandra discovered in the Moscow State Archives in 1991. He also gained access to Stalin's Hitler files, which had been missing for nearly fifty years.He left journalism in 1993 to become a ghostwriter, collaborating with politicians, pop stars, psychologists, adventurers and show business personalities to write their autobiographies. He also writes novels including The Suspect, The Night Ferry, Lost, and The Secrets She Keeps. He won numerous awards including the Ned Kelly Award for the Crime Novel of the Year in 2005 for The Drowning Man, the Ned Kelly Award for the Crime Novel of the Year in 2008 for Shatter, the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger award for best crime novel in 2015 for Life or Death, and the 2018 Australian Book Industry Awards, General fiction book of the year for The Secrets She Keeps.
(Bowker Author Biography)
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