We All Have Our Secrets by Jane Corry | Book Review

“… we all have our secrets. And the longer you pretend something, the more real it becomes.”

Two women are staying in Willowmead House. One of them is running. One of them is hiding. Both of them are lying.

Emily made one bad decision, and now her career could be over. Her family home on the Cornish coast is the only place where she feels safe. But when she arrives, there’s a stranger living with her father. Emily doesn’t trust the beautiful young woman, convinced that she’s telling one lie after another.

Soon, Emily becomes obsessed with finding out the truth… But should some secrets stay buried forever?

25. We All Have Our Secrets

The book starts off with a strong whiff of mystery when Emily returns home to Willowmead House after she is suspended from her job as a midwife pending an internal enquiry.

She is greeted at the door by Françoise, her 93-year-old father’s pretty, twenty-something carer. Emily is wary of Françoise’s unnatural closeness with Harold and is convinced she has an ulterior motive to be here.

At the same time, Emily’s guilt for not spending enough time with her father weighs on her mind and perhaps a tiny part of her understands why he craves company. Nonetheless, it is evident from their first meeting that they detest each other. The truth is, both women are harbouring secrets no one else knows and they will do anything to keep it so.

The book is divided into parts, narrated alternatively by Emily and Françoise. They are interspersed with Harold’s memories of the war in 1945 when he lied about his age so he could enlist to fight.

Jane Corry hooks you to this suspense thriller by dropping little nuggets of information that pique your curiosity. Her narrators are unreliable and the plot is rife with mystery. The events connect the present and the past, going as far back as the war. As the women compete for Harold’s attention, he himself is struggling with his demons that haunt him.

The narrative ends leaving you with more questions than when you started. A gripping thriller with sensational twists and mounting tension that is unputdownable.

We All Have Our Secrets by Jane Corry. Published in June 2022 by Penguin Random House UK. This ARC courtesy of NetGalley and Penguin Random House UK.

Book 25 of 2022.

Aquamarine Flavours Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟.

Available on Amazon*.

About Photo: The piano is of great significance in this novel and features often as it holds deep memories for the three main characters.

This papercraft version of a miniature grand piano is constructed from 220gsm Ivory paper using a template designed by Mathias Franjisic.

About the Author: Jane Corry is a former magazine journalist who spent three years working as the writer-in-residence of a high security prison for men. This often hair-raising experience helped inspire her Sunday Times-bestselling psychological thrillers, My Husband’s Wife, Blood Sisters, The Dead Ex, I Looked Away and I Made A Mistake which have been published in more than 35 countries and sold over a million copies. Jane was a tutor in creative writing at Oxford University; an RLF Fellow at Exeter University; and is a regular contributor to the Daily Telegraph and My Weekly magazine. We All Have Our Secrets is her sixth novel.

Find her on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

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