A Secret Kept

By: Tatiana de Rosnay

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's summary

This stunning novel from Tatiana de Rosnay, author of the acclaimed New York Times bestseller Sarah's Key, plumbs the depths of complex family relationships and the power of a past secret to change everything in the present.

A Secret Kept is now a major motion picture starring Melanie Laurent (Inglourious Basterds), Laurent Lafitte (The Crimson Rivers), and Audrey Dana (Roman de Gare)!

It all began with a simple seaside vacation, a brother and sister recapturing their childhood. Antoine Rey 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. It had been too long, Antoine thought, since they'd returned to the island—over thirty years, since their mother died and the family holidays ceased. 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.

Recovering from the accident in a nearby hospital, Mélanie tries to recall what caused her to crash. Antoine encounters an unexpected ally: sexy, streetwise Angèle, a mortician who will teach him new meanings for the words life, love and death. Suddenly, however, the past comes swinging back at both siblings, burdened with a dark truth about their mother, Clarisse.

Trapped in the wake of a shocking family secret shrouded by taboo, Antoine must confront his past and also his troubled relationships with his own children. How well does he really know his mother, his children, even himself? Suddenly fragile on all fronts as a son, a husband, a brother and a father, Antoine Rey will learn the truth about his family and himself the hard way.

By turns thrilling, seductive and destructive, with a lingering effect that is bittersweet and redeeming, A Secret Kept is the story of a modern family, the invisible ties that hold it together, and the impact it has throughout life.

©2010 Tatiana de Rosnay (P)2010 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

“The story of an emotionally distant family as it struggles to come to grips with changing dynamics and the mysterious death of a young mother many years ago[...] De Rosnay's writing is eloquent and beautiful, and her characterizations are both honest and dead-on[...]” —Kirkus

“A Secret Kept is a beautiful and haunting exploration of wanting - and not wanting - to understand one's past, of learning to see parents as individuals, whether the parents in question are our own or ourselves.” —Erica Bauermeister, bestselling author of The School of Essential Ingredients

“In A Secret Kept, Tatiana de Rosnay takes us on a journey to that haunted place where the past seeps into the present, where memory appears and disappears, and where healing seems always out of reach. With her lyrical prose and her gift for creating deeply sympathetic characters, de Rosnay has given us a hopeful story, as addictive as it is moving.” —Diane Chamberlain, New York Times bestselling author of Summer's Child

Loved Sarah's Key but...

It was an pretty good story but the narrator, although an excellent voice and timing, was not right for this book. Please use an English speaking Parisian when your main character is Parisian. This man is British who speaks the Queens English. I never felt I was in France although I know the city well. He was also poor at women's voices, French accents and American as well. The author did him no favor using British slangs. Admittedly, if I'm listening to a story set in France - I am a purist. I want to feel like I'm transported there.

Lower your expectations

Read it only because I LOVED Sarah's Key.

This book was good, but not as great as S.K.

Good but not great

I love the narrator, Simon Vance, but the story itself seemed to never actually get moving. A bit disappointing...

Never a Dull Moment

This book kept me wanting more. There was never a dull moment. The writing style and the voice kept me interested and it was easy to follow.
I appreciate that although the story took place in France I did not feel separated but connected to the place and the people.

Boring and predictable

Performance as good, but storyline was boring and predictable. I was disappointed because I loves Sarah's Key by the same author.

Might Stay a Secret

I loved Tatiana's "Sarah's Key" and hoped that I would love this book too. Unfortunately I it's a long, drawn out story that did not hold my attention.

It just can't capture me

I have been trying for over a month to finish this book. I can't get into it, which is sad. When I get into an audio book I find myself annoyed when having to come back to the world when I'd rather just go on quietly doing my chores and listening to a good story, but with A Secret Kept I must urge myself to keep at it. I cannot relate to the characters and there are confusing parts that jump to letters written and it just does not capture my attention. Perhaps this book would come alive a bit more if read by several people to set apart the characters and correspondence and give clues to the listener that are lost when print might do the trick. I'm sorry, Tatiana de Rosnay. This one doesn't work for me.

Couldn't finish

I read reviews complaining of the self centered, whining protagonist, and thought that perhaps those reviewers were being too harsh. I hoped that whatever The Secret of the title is would create enough of a compelling story to compensate for character weaknesses, as was the case in Sarah's Key. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to BE a compelling story. I have finally given up after listening to roughly half of the story - endless depressing descriptions of a man devoid of personality, admittedly at a loss as to how to relate to his children and moping about his ex-wife. But what finally did it was the unnecessary forensic descriptions of his "romantic" interlude in the morgue with the nymphomaniac mortician. I have not found a likable character yet and finally have decided I don't care what the secret is (although I do have a guess, and might go to my local book store just to turn to the end to see if I'm right). It's just not worth the hours more of tedious day-by-day woe-is-me. Grow a backbone and get on with it.

Great narration, boring story

While Simon Vance narrates this book extraordinarily well, it is insufficient to save this story from droning on about the French bourgeois, the French middle class, and subsequent ennui. The author's premise of an accident in which a sister is nearly killed is enticing but I think the real "Secret Kept," is why should the reader care.

OK story, terrible inconsequential ending...

don't waste your time with this book. the author does not do a good job writing from the male perspective. the story starts out great and it starts enveloping you, although throughout the book you're painfully aware that this is a female writer trying to depict and narrate from the male perspective and then the inconsequential ending arrives and you wish you wouldn't have given this book your time.