Book 3: Transworld Book Group Reading Challenge

ld2.jpgThe third book I chose to read was ‘The Secrets Between Us’ by Louise Douglas.

It’s not the type of book that I would pick up in a book shop, based on the cover, but had I read the blurb on the back, I would’ve been intrigued.

The lead character, Sarah, is recovering from some traumatic personal issues and, on a holiday, she meets Alex, who she connects with. Reluctant to go home, Alex makes her an offer she can’t refuse and she goes to live with him and his son. She is appointed as housekeeper, but it’s clear that there was more than that in her mind. Alex’s popular wife is missing, supposedly having walked out, but as time passes, people being to fear the worst…

This was a very readable book. I enjoyed Louise Douglas’s writing style, although it was over-descriptive at times, and despite guessing what happened in the first third of the book, I was happy to read on (in the hope of being proved right). I was. The characters felt real and well-rounded, and I did care what became of them.

There were a few things that nagged at me about this book, though they aren’t really negatives: the book could have been about 100 pages shorter and still told the same story; there was a little confusion about the book’s direction – at one point, I thought this may be a ghost story, but this didn’t really pan out; finally, I felt that the book was set in the wrong time period, as though the author had wanted to write in, say, the Victorian period, but this wouldn’t fit in with the logistics of the storyline – when I read the acknowledgments, this made sense to me.

Again, this is not a book I would have read, but I would look out for this author again, based on The Secrets Between Us. I’d give this book 7 out of 10: had it chosen to be a ghost story or a thriller, it would have been more.