The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton
Laurel Nicholson is sitting up in a treehouse bemoaning her teenage existence when she notices a stranger come up the walk. Her mother exits the kitchen holding her youngest, her two year old son, and a knife to cut his birthday cake. The man calls to her mother and reaches for her. She reacts by stabbing him, fatally, with the cake knife. Laurel is told to never speak of the incident after she tells the authorities what she saw. Her siblings don’t know what happened that day in the garden and she puts it (mostly) out of her mind. Yet when her mother is quite elderly and suffering from dementia Laurel remembers the incident because certain things her mother is saying don’t quiet make sense. What secrets is her mother keeping?
If you are a Kate Morton fan you will not be disappointed. I think this is her best novel yet. While she brings in elements from her previous books (which I can’t name here because I’ll give things away) she combines them in a fresh new way to write a really intriguing family drama.
