The Secrets She Keeps

May 29, 2017
Set in London, this emotionally charged domestic thriller from Edgar-finalist Robotham (Life or Death) sets up dueling narratives between part-time supermarket shelf stocker Agatha and her frequent customer, Meg. Both women are in their third trimester of pregnancy—but that’s where the similarities end. Beautiful, elegant Meg has two perfect children and a handsome and successful husband. Agatha’s life has been filled with horror and heartbreak: she’s been raped, been forced to give a child up for adoption, suffered a miscarriage, divorced, and watched her young half-brother die after being hit by a car. Both mothers-to-be are hiding dark secrets, and when Meg’s baby is stolen just hours after being born, the media frenzy that ensues threatens to expose Agatha and Meg’s respective transgressions and destroy their lives. Despite the disturbing subject matter, Robotham’s narrative is intimate and insightful. Brilliantly rendered characters, relentless tension, and numerous plot twists make this a winner. Agent: Richard Pine, Inkwell Management.

Starred review from June 15, 2017
Robotham, best known for his gritty Joe O'Loughlin crime thrillers (Close Your Eyes, 2016, etc.), makes a successful literary departure in this engrossing psychological thriller focusing on two women and the dark places their relationship leads.Every day, Agatha watches Meg from the window of the London grocery store where she works. Meg is pregnant, beautiful, and privileged, with a handsome husband, two lively children, and a perfect home--and a popular blog where she memorializes it all. For Agatha, who wants a life like Meg's and instead comes home to an empty and shabby apartment, life would be infinitely better if she could lure Hayden back. A communications technician in the Royal Navy, Hayden dumped her when he deployed and now wants nothing to do with her, but Agatha has yet to tell him that she's pregnant, due in early December, as is Meg. Meanwhile, Meg's husband, Jack, a TV sports journalist, has been less than enthusiastic about Meg's current pregnancy, and their marriage--despite what Agatha thinks--is far from perfect. Meg is also hiding a secret: she slept with a family friend and former lover, Simon, following a big fight with Jack. Agatha takes the opportunity of their joint pregnancies to talk to Meg one day, and they soon grow better acquainted, but Agatha keeps Meg in the dark when it comes to her own troubled past as well as the real reason she and Hayden aren't together and why having a baby is so important to her. Told in Agatha's and Meg's alternating, distinct first-person voices, the story of how the women's lives overlap as Meg's marriage and Agatha's life both unravel starts with a gradual glimpse into the two women's worlds, then escalates into something much more sinister. Robotham captures the physical misery that often characterizes late-term pregnancies and writes convincingly in a female voice, but where this book excels is in the increasing sense of threat he crafts so well. With its interestingly imperfect characters and escalating sense of urgency, this novel will keep you reading as fast as you can.

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February 15, 2017

Pregnant Agatha stocks grocery shelves part-time and worships ineffably chic customer Meghan. When she learns that Meghan's third child is due the same month as her own baby, Agatha gets up the nerve to speak to her--and all hell breaks loose, with a kidnapping plot part of the mix. Robotham has been an Edgar finalist, twice short-listed for the CWA UK Steel Dagger, and twice winner of Australia's Ned Kelly Award.

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