The Secret Keeper

By: Kate Morton

Narrated by: Caroline Lee

Length: 19 hrs and 53 mins

Publisher's summary

England, 1959: Laurel Nicolson is 16 years old, dreaming alone in her childhood tree house during a family celebration at their home, Green Acres Farm. She spies a stranger coming up the long road to the farm and then observes her mother, Dorothy, speaking to him. And then she witnesses a crime.

Fifty years later, Laurel is a successful and well-regarded actress, living in London. She returns to Green Acres for Dorothy’s 90th birthday and finds herself overwhelmed by memories and questions she has not thought about for decades. She decides to find out the truth about the events of that summer day and lay to rest her own feelings of guilt. One photograph, of her mother and a woman Laurel has never met, called Vivian, is her first clue.

The Secret Keeper explores longings and dreams, the lengths some people go to fulfill them, and the strange consequences they sometimes have. It is a story of lovers, friends, dreamers and schemers, play-acting, and deception told against a backdrop of events that changed the world.

©2012 Kate Morton (P)2012 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd

I loved this book!

So much better than Gone Baby Gone. Not twisted ...... Just a great mystery!
I wish there were more books like this on the market right now.

Mysterious after mysterious. Twist after Twist!

I was not really engaged with this book at first, but my god am I happy to have stayed and seen it to the end!

I didn't want it to end!

Great story about a family's history filled with unexpected secrets. The eldest daughter witnesses a very disturbing event as a child; she revisits it many years later as her elderly mother is dying. The story is told from the mothers view point back in the 1940s and the daughter's research of the situation in modern times.

The characters are enjoyable, the story unfolds in many surprising directions, and its just plan entertaining. I often wanted to keep listening when I arrived at my destination.

I did guess the big surprise at the end but it was not disappointing. I will look for other books by this author.

One of the best I've listened to in a long time!

Kate Morton has a way of captivating the reader's attention from beginning to end. There was never a point where I became bored or uninterested. She has a way of making her characters easily relatable. This story was a heart warming mystery that was absolutely unpredictable. Thank you for the entertainment!

Wonderful!!

This is one of the best books, if not THE best book, I have ever read. I love the story, the narration, all of it. This is the second Kate Morton book I have read and I really enjoyed the other one, this was better!

Near complete immersion, wonderful

The author starts off the story with an event, introduces characters, actions, and circumstances. Carefully, she then tells the background story of the characters and circumstances, leading you to understand what created the personalities and their actions. The times are extraordinary. The characters are engulfed in the distopia of wartime London and are forced to be stripped down to their basic character, for better or worse. So the going is slow; the audiobook is quite long, not really picking up momentum until about halfway through. But the payoff if there, leaving the reader understanding who these people are, and why they act the way they do. For any anglophile, the description of wartime London is truly absorbing. The author seems have have meticulously researched this period, and the setting she creates for the story is very satisfying. Ultimately, this book is a human drama, not so much a mystery; a few moments of intense action and a lot of more quiet examination. 4 stars overall due to the pace. Narration is excellent, she does an excellent job subtly differentiating the voices for the various characters.

One of Kate's best!

Would you listen to The Secret Keeper again? Why?

Yes, I would. The story kept me interested from about the middle of the 1st chapter, and as it progressed the interest stayed with me. I love a good story, and the narrator has such a lovely voice.

What other book might you compare The Secret Keeper to and why?

The 1st book that I listened to by Kate Morton was The Forgotten Garden. That one also kept my interest throughout the whole book. Kate spins a lovely long story..and that is one of the things that I look for when deciding how to use my credit each month.

If I had to compare this story to another one from a different author, then I would compare it to Diana Gabaldon's Outlander but only because of the story line and the narrator. Both books are radically different because Gabaldon weaves a story of time travel. This book has the main character remembering tragic events in her childhood and trying to piece what actually happened together with what she thinks she remembers.

Outlander is not a mystery or thriller. The Secret Keeper could be classified as a mystery or thriller, simply because of the way that the author goes back and forth from present day to Laurel's memories from long ago. She also writes about the mother's history as well, and that brings the whole story together quite nicely by the end of it.

The reader will NEVER guess the ending though. It isn't revealed until the last part, and when I heard it I was totally floored!

What does Caroline Lee bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

I just love how she narrates and how she changes her voices to accurately reflect a male vs. female voice. She also has different voices for each character that brings that character to life in my mind.

I fell in love with audio books several years ago because for me it felt like my mom was reading a story to me when I was a child before I learned to read myself. Listening to a story brings something fresh to the content that would otherwise be absent in the printed version.

I only read printed books or E-books now if I am reading a nonfiction book or doing a work book or exercise type of book where I need to be able to write answers to questions down. I have often not read a printed book because there is no audio book version available.

Having said that, I do wish that Audible would do something about their policy that stops us from being able to make MP3 copies of the books that we buy. Now that Audible is part of Amazon, we should be able to burn MP3 copies of the books we pay for if that is what we want to do. We buy the books, the publisher's get their money, Audible gets paid, and the author's get paid. It should not matter to any of the above how we choose to listen to our books once we buy them. I would far prefer to burn an Audible book onto 1 or 2 CDs rather than having to burn them on 30 or more CDs in the case of one of Gabaldon's books. It is a waste of CDs to have to do that.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I laughed, cried, screamed, sucked my breath in at parts, felt the anguish Laurel felt, and cheered for the characters. That says that this book is a great read. Anytime I feel all of this when listening to a book puts it on my 2nd, 3rd, or 4th listen list.

Any additional comments?

Buy this book! It picks up quickly and takes you on a ride through time that I think you will enjoy!

Exceeded my greatest expectations

I know the characters in this book! They are real to me, and their stories are completely believable even with their surprising twists and turns. Very smooth transitions between the viewpoints of various characters during different periods of time. Caroline Lee's narration was perfect. Loved her beautiful English accent. And, yes, Kate Morton, the last 3 chapters caught me totally by surprise! Highly recommend!

a wonderful listen & story!

What did you love best about The Secret Keeper?

a wonderful story that flitted between eras and kept me guessing. i usually figure out the story before it's revealed but this one was full of twists that i didn't figure it out until just before it was "revealed". loved the narration of caroline lee - her accent and flow really added to the story. a great listen!

Little slow going but great satisfying ending

I love how Kate Morton lets you think you have it figured out over and over again, but you usually don't. At least not quite.