From the
New York Times and internationally bestselling
author of
The Distant Hours, The Forgotten Garden, and
The House at Riverton, a spellbinding new novel filled
with mystery, thievery, murder, and enduring love.
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.
