TUESDAY POTPOURRI: “THE SECRETS SHE KEEPS”

Welcome to another Tuesday celebrating bookish events, First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Bibliophile by the Sea; and Teaser Tuesdays hosted by The Purple Booker.

Today’s featured book is a recent download:  The Secrets She Keeps, by Michael Robotham, a riveting suspense novel about the unlikely friendship between two pregnant women that asks: how far would you go to create the perfect family?

 

Intro:  (Agatha)

I am not the most important person in this story.  That honor belongs to Meg, who is married to Jack, and they are the perfect parents of two perfect children, a boy and a girl, blond and blue-eyed and sweeter than honey cakes.  Meg is pregnant again and I couldn’t be more excited because I’m having a baby too.

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Teaser:  (Agatha)

After the introductions, I’m shown into the room they call “the parlor,” where I perch on the edge of the sofa, knees together.  Everything in the room seems to match, with the same floral pattern on the curtains, the cushions, and the wastepaper basket.  Tea and cake are served.  I’m starving, but I’m on crumb watch. (p. 56).

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Synopsis:  Agatha is pregnant and works part-time stocking shelves at a grocery store in a ritzy London suburb, counting down the days until her baby is due. As the hours of her shifts creep by in increasing discomfort, the one thing she looks forward to at work is catching a glimpse of Meghan, the effortlessly chic customer whose elegant lifestyle dazzles her. Meghan has it all: two perfect children, a handsome husband, a happy marriage, a stylish group of friends, and she writes perfectly droll confessional posts on her popular parenting blog—posts that Agatha reads with devotion each night as she waits for her absent boyfriend, the father of her baby, to maybe return her calls.

When Agatha learns that Meghan is pregnant again, and that their due dates fall within the same month, she finally musters up the courage to speak to her, thrilled that they now have the ordeal of childbearing in common. Little does Meghan know that the mundane exchange she has with a grocery store employee during a hurried afternoon shopping trip is about to change the course of her not-so-perfect life forever…

With its brilliant rendering of the secrets some women hold close and a shocking act that cannot be undone, The Secrets She Keeps delivers a dark and twisted page-turner that is absolutely impossible to put down.

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What do you think?  Do the excerpts grab you?  Would you keep reading?

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