A Secret Kept
A Novel
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3.8 • 598 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The long-delayed resolution of a French family's mystery electrifies de Rosnay's (Sarah's Key) glimpse at the crushing cost of keeping secrets. Parisian architect Antoine Rey and his sister, M lanie, celebrate her 40th birthday on the island where they vacationed as children with their mother, until she died there in 1974. Upon returning, M lanie is gripped by a shocking repressed memory and loses control of the car. After a brief spell of amnesia, she tells her brother what it was she remembered: their mother had been in love with a woman. As a skeptical Antoine investigates this twist in their mother's past, an upsetting chain of events unfurls: his daughter's best friend drops dead of a heart condition at only 14 years of age; his teenage son is arrested; and he learns that his father is dying of cancer. Antoine gets support in his quest from a new lover, a Harley-riding mortician who teaches him how respecting death helps one to embrace life. This perceptive portrait of a middle-aged man's delayed coming-of-age rates as a seductive, suspenseful, and tr s formidable keeper.
Customer Reviews
See AllA secret kept
Blanche et Robert (avenue Henri Martin)
Solange
Francois et Clarisse ( died in 1974) Antoine (astrid :Arno and margaux and Lucas and serge) and Melanie 1967 (Olivier) clarisse avenue kleber for 10 years
Francois et astrid Malakoff
Francois rue Froidevaux
Noirmoutier 6 ans en 73 pour ses 40 ans (2007) one letter p72 she writes to her amant that Melanie is 6 and she has known him for a year
francois et Regine 1977: Josephine 1982
Questions: p 153
Lighting a cigarette: research the law about smoking at that time and today
Questions: p154
Research about the cemetrery where Baudelaire is buried and who else is buried there. Other cemeteries in Paris?
Questions: p224
Could Clarisse have been writing a book?
Note P215 Walking in Paris: a blessing
Reflexion: Making part of some pieces of the secret make us be part of both Melanie and Tonio
Tania always put actors from the US
A secret kept
Terrible.
A Secret Kept
This book is terrible. It is poorly written, has NO consistency whatsoever and ends a completely different story than the one the book started with. It jumped around, kept changing the main idea, added FAR too much useless information and never resolved the primary conflict. I could never recommend this book to anyone.