The Secret She Kept by Cathryn Grant
Genre: Psychological thriller, Domestic thriller, Suspense
Read: 14th December 2022
Published: 13th December 2022
★★★★ 4 stars
DESCRIPTION:
There are some things you just don’t see coming. Like Nadia.
Ruth feels like she’s living the dream. She is happily married to the love of her life, Cameron, and she is deeply fulfilled in her work - running the wellness center that grew out of their shared vision.
But something feels off to Ruth about a new client, Nadia. She asks so many probing and personal questions about Ruth’s life. It feels intrusive to the point where Ruth asks the young woman to leave.
But Nadia isn’t going anywhere.
Because she knows far more about Ruth than she let on. In fact, she knows everything about Ruth’s past, including the dark secret Ruth thought was locked forever inside her own heart.
Now, Nadia is blackmailing Ruth, putting her under unbearable stress. Ruth can’t get rid of Nadia – who has inserted herself into the family home - but she has no way to get the money Nadia is demanding without Cameron finding out. And if Cameron discovers what happened all those years ago, she knows she’ll lose him forever.
Ruth feels utterly trapped, on the brink of losing everything that matters to her. And she begins to wonder just what she is willing to do to protect… the secret she kept.
MY THOUGHTS:
Ruth has lead a perfect life married to her childhood sweetheart, a stunning house and creating a state of the art wellness centre alongside her husband Cameron. Ruth's mother Cheryl lives in a beautiful cottage at the back of their house, giving both space whilst always being near.
And then Nadia Fairchild walks into the centre and into Ruth's life. Injecting herself into every aspect of Ruth's life - friends, family, business and home - and then threatens everything she has ever held dear.
For Ruth has a secret. A big one. And Nadia knows that Ruth will do anything to keep that secret from getting out. And so she demands $50,000. And until she figures out how to raise that sort of cash without drawing Cameron's attention, Nadia decides to move into their illustrious home and enjoy the benefits of their lifestyle. How is she to tell Cameron that a client, a complete stranger is going to be taking up residence in their guest room? Not my problem, Nadia says.
Cameron is less than pleased with their guest's arrival and finds Ruth's reasons for taking her in both out of character and a conflict of interest. But how can she make him accept her reasons, lame as they are? But one thing is for sure, she must convince him to allow her to stay or she risks Nadia revealing her darkest secret. And she cannot risk that. Nor can she confide in him. Her secret surely would destroy them.
And what of Nadia's plans? What is her end game? And if Ruth pays her the blackmail money, will she then leave? And if she doesn't, what does she have in store for Ruth?
THE SECRET SHE KEPT is a cat and mouse thriller that will have you on the edge of your seat wondering who is going to come out on top and who is going to lose. The gaslighting, the manipulation and the mind games will have you despising Nadia from the first page. But then most of the characters were far from likable. In addition to the manipulative Nadia, there is the entitled and selfish Micah (Cameron's dad) and his appalling trophy wife who did nothing but complain about everything for the short time she was featured. Ruth's mum Cheryl was in some kind of denial about the past and still refused to acknowledge it but I actually kind of liked her. Justine was confrontational and although I understood why, it didn't endear her to me. And then there was Ruth. I didn't even much like her. I really couldn't understand why she couldn't tell Cameron in the first place...until the secret truly unravelled and I guessed the even bigger secret behind it. But even then, I still thought she could have confided in him.
The story had a lot of drama surrounding Justine and her daughter Kellyn which I felt didn't really go anywhere. And even in the end there was no real closure about it. Just some humming and hahhing. Even more puzzling were some of the aspects of the story that were left unexplained. Why didn't Cameron not want children? It was clearly emphasised but never explained. And why in God's name did Nadia cut her arm and smear her blood all over the window and door of Micah and Deanne's motel room? I was puzzled as to why when she was doing it...and then it was never explained why she actually did. That entire scene was ludicrous and served no purpose.
And then there was the ending. That was the worst. After taking days to find a few spare minutes to read this book, it ends like that? What the hell was that? Totally unsatisfactory and senseless to me. I'm not sure what I expected but it wasn't that.
But on the whole, I enjoyed THE SECRET SHE KEPT and look forward to reading more by this author. It is my second read by her with "The Favorite Child" being my first which I thoroughly enjoyed.
I would like to thank #CathrynGrant, #Netgalley, #InkubatorBooks and #ZoolooTours for an ARC of #TheSecretSheKept in exchange for an honest review.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
Cathryn's fiction has appeared in Alfred Hitchcock and Ellery Queen Mystery Magazines, The Shroud Quarterly Journal, and been anthologized in The Best of Every Day Fiction and You, Me & A Bit of We. Her short story, “I Was Young Once”, received an honorable mention in the 2007 Zoetrope All-story Short Fiction contest.
Her psychological suspense fiction reveals the motives and desires that lead to suburban crime. She’s the author of two psychological thrillers, seven suburban noir novels, the Alexandra Mallory psychological suspense series, the Haunted Ship Trilogy, the Madison Keith Ghost Story series, and a variety of short fiction.
When she’s not writing, Cathryn reads fiction, eavesdrops, and tries to play golf without hitting her ball into the sand or the water. She lives on the Central California coast with her husband and two cats.
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