A secret kept / Tatiana de Rosnay.
Record details
- ISBN: 9780312593315 (hc.)
- ISBN: 9780312553494 (trade pbk.)
- Physical Description: 305 p. ; 21 cm.
- Edition: 1st ed.
- Publisher: New York : St. Martin's Press, 2010.
Content descriptions
General Note: | Dec 10 |
Target Audience Note: | All Ages. |
Search for related items by subject
Subject: | Brothers and sisters > Fiction. Family secrets > Fiction. Noirmoutier Island (France) > Fiction. |
Genre: | Psychological fiction. |
Available copies
- 30 of 30 copies available at BC Interlibrary Connect. (Show)
- 1 of 1 copy available at Prince Rupert Library.
Holds
- 0 current holds with 30 total copies.
Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Holdable? | Status | Due Date |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Prince Rupert Library | Rosn (Text) | 33294001812528 | Adult Fiction - Second Floor | Volume hold | Available | - |
- Booklist Reviews : Booklist Reviews 2010 August #1
Frenchman Antoine Rey wants to do something special for his sister Melanie on her fortieth birthday, so he surprises her with a weekend trip to Noirmoutier Island, where the two spent many idyllic childhood summers until their mother's untimely death. While the weekend itself goes well, on the drive back home to Paris, Melanie is overpowered by a memory of her mother and drives off the road. She suffers extensive injuries, and as she heals in the hospital, Antoine obsesses over just what it was that his sister recalled. He is determined to find answers, but where and how? There are few surviving family members, and those remaining resist his unsettling queries. Meanwhile, distractions abound, as Antoine takes up with the sexy hospital mortician (who wears black and drives a Harley-Davidson, ooh la la). He and his ex-wife must also deal with their badly behaving son, who's recently landed in jail. Internationally best-selling French novelist de Rosnay renders swift, lucid prose and steady suspense (even though one of the novel's big secrets is revealed mid-tale). Expect demand among fans of both literary mystery and high-end romance. Copyright 2010 Booklist Reviews. - BookPage Reviews : BookPage Reviews 2010 September
A brother and sister revisit their painful pastSibling rivalry, the bane of many a family, never reared its ugly head for brother and sister Antoine and Melanie Rey. Tethered together by a childhood tragedy, this loyal pair remain the best of friends as they head bravely, albeit begrudgingly, towards middle age. But the companionable camaraderie enjoyed by Antoine and Melanie in Tatiana de Rosnay's latest novel, A Secret Kept, is torn asunder when brother and sister are haunted by resurrected childhood memories, with one sibling longing desperately to remember, and the other, determined to forget.
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De Rosnay's novel, her follow-up to the 2007 bestseller Sarah's Key, begins innocently enough with Antoine planning a surprise 40th birthday weekend for Melanie at Noirmoutier Island, where the brother and sister vacationed during many joyful summers before their mother's tragic and untimely death. Still devastated and demoralized by his recent divorce, Antoine is eager to escape Paris and the depressing detritus of middle age, in particular, a pair of rebellious, sullen teenage children, irrational clients and an ex-wife for whom he still stubbornly holds a torch.
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"They had always done things together," writes de Rosnay. "Made decisions together. Faced the enemy together. That was over. Antoine was on his own now. And when Friday night came around and he heard his children's key in the lock, he had to brace himself, to square his shoulders like a soldier going into battle."
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Antoine's grief over the dissolution of his marriage and fledgling attempts at single parenthood are the most poignant portions of A Secret Kept. Though at times ProustianâAntoine has never recovered from his beloved mother's death, and bitterly resents his father for surviving into old ageâde Rosnay makes no mention of madeleines, but serves up plenty of Freudian intrigue. To be sure, Antoine's louche sexual escapades (he enjoys a steamy hookup with a new girlfriend, seemingly unperturbed by the fact that his visiting teenage children are in the next room) ultimately prove cathartic, restoring his dignity and passion, and spurring him on to finally learn the truth about his mother's lifeâand death. Though Melanie never evolves beyond the beautiful, dutiful daughter in denial, de Rosnay has crafted a compelling, heartrending tale. This enchanting hybrid of a mystery/love story is certain to keep her readers hungrily turning pages in the middle of the night. Â Â Â
Copyright 2010 BookPage Reviews.
- Kirkus Reviews : Kirkus Reviews 2010 July #1
The story of an emotionally distant family as it struggles to come to grips with changing dynamics and the mysterious death of a young mother many years ago.
Like de Rosnay's bestselling Sarah's Key (2007), this novel is set in Paris, but while her earlier novel explored a national tragedy, this one tackles a personal one. Antoine Rey, son of the famous attorney, and his sister, Mélanie, are returning from a visit to the family's old summer vacation stomping grounds when Mélanie tells her brother she has remembered something important about their mother's death. She promptly steers the car into a wreck, putting herself in the hospital, unable to remember the important detail she once recalled. Antoine sits vigil by his sister's side, trying to figure out what has gone wrong with his life: His wife has left him for another man, of his three children only one seems to like him anymore, and he is tired of dating vacuous young women. His father, who comes from a well-known Parisian family, is old, paunchy and distantâa complete shadow of the man who was married to the gorgeous Clarisse. Clarisse, Antoine and Mélanie's mother, died when they were small children, supposedly succumbing to an aneurism in their apartment, but when Antoine starts questioning the version of her death they have always accepted as the truth, he stumbles upon some disturbing possibilities. In the meantime, he becomes involved in a relationship with a woman his own age who impresses him with her independence and sexuality, squares off against his eldest son and helps his daughter through a tough loss of her own. De Rosnay's writing is eloquent and beautiful, and her characterizations are both honest and dead-onâanyone with a teenager will recognize the parental angst Antoine experiences as genuine. But the plot meanders to a conclusion that seems anticlimactic at best, a letdown at worstâthe secret is hardly worth the trouble it causes.
For any other writer this would be a fine novel, but de Rosnay's fans will expect more than the central character's aimless journey.
Copyright Kirkus 2010 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved. - Publishers Weekly Reviews : PW Reviews 2010 July #4
The long-delayed resolution of a French family's mystery electrifies de Rosnay's (Sarah's Key) glimpse at the crushing cost of keeping secrets. Parisian architect Antoine Rey and his sister, Mélanie, celebrate her 40th birthday on the island where they vacationed as children with their mother, until she died there in 1974. Upon returning, Mélanie is gripped by a shocking repressed memory and loses control of the car. After a brief spell of amnesia, she tells her brother what it was she remembered: their mother had been in love with a woman. As a skeptical Antoine investigates this twist in their mother's past, an upsetting chain of events unfurls: his daughter's best friend drops dead of a heart condition at only 14 years of age; his teenage son is arrested; and he learns that his father is dying of cancer. Antoine gets support in his quest from a new lover, a Harley-riding mortician who teaches him how respecting death helps one to embrace life. This perceptive portrait of a middle-aged man's delayed coming-of-age rates as a seductive, suspenseful, and trés formidable keeper. (Sept.)
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