1976. Rushing out of the University Library, undergraduate Alice Kenzie bumps straight into PhD student Tristan Somers. There begins a whirlwind romance, and Alice falls pregnant and gives birth to a baby girl. Then Tristan is killed in a car accident. Unable to cope, Alice takes her baby to Summer House, Tristan's family home in Suffolk, leaves her there and disappears.
2018. Olivia Somers has always been told that her mother died in the same accident as her father. But when she finds a bundle of old letters in Summer House, everything she ever believed about her mother is called into question. Can she find her - and even more importantly, forgive her?
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She sleeps fitfully, disturbed by strange dreams.- PROLOGUE, CAMBRIDGE, JUNE 2018
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(Aria, 21 April 2022, e-book, 336 pages, borrowed from AmazonKindle via PrimeReading)
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I thoroughly enjoyed The Secrets of Summer House. I really enjoy books that use time shifts and different timelines to tell a story. This can be a really effective method of storytelling and it certainly is with this book. The chapters move from the present with Oliva trying to get to the bottom of family secrets she discovers after her grandmother dies and 1976 when Olivia's parents meet and set in force a chain of events that have consequences for many years I enjoyed learning about both era's and characters and how they all fit together. This is a riveting book.
