Leah
Written on Nov 16, 2010
I’ve never read any of Sue Moorcroft’s work but I do actually have three of her novels on my shelf, Starting Over, All That Mullarkey and her latest release Want To Know A Secret? (which was originally published as Family Matters in 2008). With a review slow to fill, I decided now would be the perfect time to try one of Sue’s books and I started it not really knowing what to expect and was sufficiently pleased with the read that I got.
In Want To Know A Secret? the main theme of the story is, as you might expect, secrets. As the book opens we meet Diane Jenner as she learns that her husband Gareth has been in an accident. Diane is then shocked to discover that not only was Gareth in an accident, but it wasn’t of the car variety, he was actually in a helicopter with his step-sister Valerie. Diane has never heard of Valerie, and long believed Gareth of never having a father so everything that comes out as a result of the helicopter crash leaves Diane utterly stunned. I found the opening of the book very compelling – a helicopter crash? Secret family members? It really managed to pull me in.
Once Diane reaches the hospital after learning of Gareth’s crash, she gets the chance to meet Valerie’s family, her husband James, father Harold and daughter Tamzin. They’re as stunned to meet her as she them and Diane finds herself vaguely attracted to James, culminating in them ending up in the back of James’ Mercedes doing something they really shouldn’t. Usually, any hint of an affair would put me off a novel but I understood what drove Diane and James to do what they did. It made sense, and I enjoyed the struggle as they tried to deny their feelings for each other whilst being tied to their respective partners, despite what their partners did to them. Plus the whisper of an affair carries on the theme of secrets, as you might expect.
I found myself quite liking Diane and James. The situation they find themselves in isn’t something that happens every day and definitely isn’t one I’m usually on board with (for my rant about people having/potentially having affairs please come back another day) and I liked the way they dealt with the situation. They seemed very real and I found myself really hoping everything would end for the best for them. As for the minor characters in the novel, I wasn’t enamored with Valerie or Gareth, neither were particularly likeable, but I found the rest of the characters very interesting. I loved Tamzin, she was probably my favourite character of all, and her little plot line was fairly hard-hitting, it has to be said and I felt so sad for her. Harold, Gareth and Valerie’s father seemed like an interesting character and it was a shame we didn’t see more of him. I didn’t know what to make of the other characters – we don’t see much of Bryony, Diane and Gareth’s daughter, and any of the wider family, but they all seemed as good as the rest.
There was quite a twist at the end, something I wasn’t particularly expecting, and it definitely woke me up! However what I didn’t like about the novel was the repetition of words. ‘Cool’ is completely overused by all the younger adults in the novel – Tamzin, George, Bryony and it begins to sound a bit fake after a while that everything is cool. The way the young adults are portrayed is a tad cliched and despite liking Tamzin, I did find most of the scenes hard to swallow. It happens with other words, too, and some of the writing itself was a bit too sweet for me, but apart from those niggles I did find the book very readable and finished it in three days. I would definitely recommend it, because it does get easier to get past the way the younger folk in the book are written, honestly! Sue Moorcroft can definitely tell a story, and I do look forward to reading her other two novels and any more she will be having published.