September has been a bloody heavy month for me,
let me tell you that for free. I’ve not had a lot of time to sit down and
devour a good book. Unfortunately today, I woke up and was sick so I took
advantage of my forced day in bed and got one of the books I had on the go
finished. The lucky book was The Secret by
Kathryn Hughes and I’m happy to say
that after a false start, I quite enjoyed this read.
I say false start because the first 80 or so
pages confused the bejesus out of me. I kept muddling up the characters and
getting confused as to which storyline related to who but once I got that all
figured out in my head, the book was pretty darn good. I absolutely loved how
the story kind of full circled and everything and everyone mentioned was relevant
in one way or another.
The characters were interesting and I enjoyed
how they all had their individual tales – there wasn’t a character I
particularly disliked throughout the entire story which is rare for me. I
normally find someone who does my head in so it was a bit refreshing actually liking
all of the characters, to be honest.
The story is centred around two time shifts,
both important to the story and central to the “secret”, that Mary, the
recently deceased character, has been keeping for the entirety of her adult
life. The secret itself isn’t all that tricky to work out but the ways that
Hughes goes about getting you to the reveal is incredibly well done and makes
the story one that you just HAVE to finish. The story starts off in the present
day, where we learn that Mary, the mother of Beth, has recently died. Beth has no
idea who her father is, her mother’s husband passing away just months before
she was conceived. Unfortunately for her, her son requires a lifesaving kidney
transplant and neither her nor her husband are a match for his blood type. With
the help of her husband, Beth investigates deeper into the mystery of her
father’s identity in the hope that he can somehow save her child’s life.
I have to say that it’s not my usual type of
book, I tend to go for psychological thrillers or else YA sob-fests but I
enjoyed this one as if it fell into those genres. It was nice to go a bit out
of my comfort zone and have a go at reading a genre that’s relatively
unfamiliar to me- it’s been a while since I’ve read a general contemporary
fiction.
Thanks so much to the team at Headline Review for my copy of the
book! As always, it is much appreciated!
I’m excited to get stuck into my next book, Kids of Appetite by David Arnold, also published by
Headline review and somehow salvage my September reads!
