Twenty years after he left WWI's battlefields, Australian Joe Parker thinks he has tamed all his demons. His American wife Sophie, a wartime nurse, thinks she knows all his secrets. He hasn’t. She doesn’t.
July 1939. The Parkers are looking forward to a long-delayed honeymoon in France before they sail home to Sydney. But visiting a site where Joe fought wreaks havoc with their itinerary and their marriage.
When they arrive at Villers-Bretonneux, the location of Joe’s most brutal battle, his long-buried memories erupt, including the ones he never told Sophie. And an impromptu trip to the French Alps only makes things worse when they discover German war artifacts on pristine alpine trails and the walls of the miles-deep Chamonix valley close in on Joe like the deepest trench he ever experienced. All the defenses he uses to hold his memories at bay start crumbling as the world teeters on the brink of a second world war.
Bonds of friendship and shared experience helped them endure the Great War, but Sophie begins to doubt how well she really knows her husband when the foundations of their relationship seem to shift out of control. Can their marriage survive this trip? Or will Joe’s need to keep his secrets break both their hearts?
Join Sophie and Joe on their journey of love, loss, secrets, and redemption, from France to Australia and back again.
Overall, I enjoyed reading Dare Not Tell. I enjoyed the growth in the relationship between Sophie and Joe. I struggled when the book seemed to suddenly change to a mystery novel from what I initially felt was historical literary (or women's) fiction novel. It was a strong novel full of emotion, but the added mystery in the last part of the novel jolted me out of it a bit.
I received a copy of this novel from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.