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| Penguin Books UK August 2013 |
My darling Cecilia.
If you’re reading this , then I've died.
When Cecilia Fitzpatrick discovers
a letter written by her husband, that is only meant to be opened after his
death, she is naturally curious. As her husband, John-Paul, is very much alive,
she fights the urge to open the letter. However, as we know, natural curiosity exists
and before long Cecilia is aware of something bubbling beneath the surface of
her successful life, and her once placid husband now seems strangely troubled
by the idea that this letter has surfaced. What then follows is a clever
dissection of family life, which shows, all too easily, the risk of unburdening
secrets which have long been buried. The catastrophic events that are unleashed
by the revelation of what this letter contains makes for interesting reading.
Initially, the book gets off to a
slow start and the unexpected introduction, at chapter two, of a completely new
set of characters threw me off track for a while and I didn't know where the
story line was going to take me, but eventually the strands started to come together,
and I became quite immersed in the way in which the author navigated through
quite a complex plot. The characterisation was really well done, there are some
interesting people, I especially liked the quirky headmistress of the primary school,
whose antics during the Easter Bonnet parade made me smile, and I thought that Rachel
Crowley acted with great dignity, her melt down, such as it was, was quite poignant.
I enjoyed putting the pieces of
the puzzle together and well before the revelation of The Husband’s Secret, I did
guess where the story was leading, but that didn't detract from the overall
enjoyment.
My thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Books UK for my copy of this book
This is a book I want to read :) Great review!
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