Hidden Secrets

By: Carolyn Brown

Narrated by: Shannon McManus

Length: 6 hrs and 44 mins

Publisher's Summary

Kim Brewster's ill-fated marriage was annulled so quickly that she thought she could keep the whole thing a secret...until she found out she was pregnant. But before her confession can blow a hole in the seemingly perfect lives of the Brewster women, her great-grandmother, Hannah, drops a bomb of her own. She's selling her hotel and moving to a farm in Oklahoma - and all the Brewsters are coming with her. Kim is sure her grandmother, Karen, and mother, Sue, won't go along with the plan, but Hannah can be very convincing. Soon the women are working the farm, selling their wares from a roadside stand, and finally feeling like a family.

And as the Brewster women's lives take shape in ways they never expected, Kim may have found another shot at love. Luke thought he'd washed his hands of women, but when he stops by the vegetable stand and meets Kim, he's instantly smitten. To find love, though, they'll both have to dig past their hidden secrets.

©2012 Carolyn Brown (P)2016 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.

Great story

This was a great story and it didn't have all the cussing that some of her books have. Proof that you can tell a great story without cussing every other breath. Greatly enjoyed it!!

4 of 4 people found this review helpful

absolutely beautiful

this book was so special to me. i lost track of how many times i teared up. i hope to have a relationship with my grandkids one day just like this. 😊❤

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

I felt as if I was there with the characters

I love Carolyn Brown's books. They are so comforting. This book features four generations of well off women who have left West Virginia for the rigors of a farm in Oklahoma. I feel as if I am sitting at the table with the ladies in Hidden Secrets as they prepare foods and talk to one another. In this book each female character has a secret that is revealed to the other characters. The revealed secrets draw them closer. One reviewer commented that everything comes too easily to the characters, but I frankly want their lives to be good. I did not want to read about failure and struggling. I was drawn into this story and felt quite satisfied by the ending. Lovely story.

The narrator is very talented. I forgot she was there and only believed the characters were present. I knew who was talking and never thought about the narrator's accent. She just honestly and quietly performed the characters and made them come alive.

awesome

very good book. But I like all of Caroline's books. enjoy them all.
Thanks you

Four Generations of Secrets

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Great listen. Road trip for 4 generations of women finding themselves and a life they love instead of a role they must play. The journey brings them closer together and shows that no one is perfect and sheds the responsibility of protecting the family name.

Lovely story about family and new beginnings

Carolyn Brown really has a keen insight into small town Texas and Oklahoma. Here she portrays a dysfunctional family given another chance by their great grandmother’s cousin and best friend, when she wills her farm in Oklahoma to them. They must move to rural Oklahoma from a more urban setting on the East coast. The diseased cousin, Norma and great grandmother, Hannah have a plan to get her daughter, grand daughter, and great grand daughter to also stay permanently,and find unity and perhaps love. The performance narration was excellent.

Too much

I just couldn't get into this book. For me there was too much going on, I mean there were 4 main female characters and 2 main male characters.

Not nearly as good as her other books

This is my third Carolyn Brown book after "The Lilac Bouquet" and my favorite, "The Ladies' Room," both of which I appreciated for their gradual and realistic development of the characters and/or their relationships with one another. Unfortunately, "Hidden Secrets" is simply lacking in this area. With four protagonists instead of one, there is no real character arc for any of them. The romances seem to just sort of happen, and Ms. Brown falls back far too often on blunt statements along the lines of "we would never have grown so close had we not come to Oklahoma." Thanks to a sort of otherworldly interference, literally everything the characters need falls into their laps, to the point where the book even concludes with [SPOILER ALERT] not one, but TWO infertility miracles. Even the title seems thrown together; of course a secret is hidden, if it were not then it would not be a secret! I hate to give a bad review to an author whose books I have thus far enjoyed, but this book simply misses the mark. The narrator was good, sometimes a little petulant sounding but all considered did a good job of differentiating the characters.

Lovely story

I enjoyed this story immensely as it kept me interested all the way through it

Light, Entertaining Family Saga

Sometimes a light and entertaining family saga is the perfect antidote to the harsh, violent realities on cable news (serial killers, homelessness, famine, nuclear weapons).

While not totally realistic (each mother had 1st and only child before age of 21), this story of 4 generations of Brewster women was engrossing and humorous.

No graphic violence or sex scenes, mostly mild language, wonderfully honest descriptions of Oklahoma, family dynamics and life on a large farm.