Author: Shirley Patton
ISBN: 9781489246783
RRP: $29.99
Publisher: Harlequin – HQ Fiction
Copy: Courtesy of the Publisher
The Secrets We Keep is another debut novel by an Australian author and I must say that I find it very exciting to feature debut authors because regardless of the hype they are still very much an unknown quantity.
Shirley Patton has penned a tale of political corruption, family betrayal and dark pasts.
Aimee is a social worker who moves to Kalgoorlie for a fresh start. Her colleagues seem friendly and one of her cases draws her in.
There is a dark secret in Aimee’s past and it soon becomes apparent that her secret connects her with the town and its residents.
I look forward to sinking my teeth into this one and at just on 300 pages I think it will be a pretty quick read, when I finally get to it.
Aimee builds her life in the local community and is left questioning earlier decisions because revealing a secret that isn’t yours alone can have unforeseen fallout.
Shirley Patton can be contacted on Facebook and ShirleyPatton.com.
The Secrets We Keep is published by HQ Fiction and is available now through Angus & Robertson Bookworld, Booktopia and where all good books are sold.
Thanks to HQ Fiction 20 of our Beauty and Lace Members are already reading The Secrets We Keep and you can read what they thought in the comments below. Please be aware there may be spoilers.
I devour books, vampires and supernatural creatures are my genre of choice but over the past couple of years, I have broadened my horizons considerably. In a nutshell – I love to write! I love interacting with a diverse range of artists to bring you interviews. Perhaps we were perfect before – I LOVE WORDS!
Shirley Patton has written a beautiful and confronting story.
The main characters intertwine to create a beautiful and compelling personal journeys while based in the tough town of Kalgoorlie.
Aimee, Kathy, Amber, Lori and Paddy provide such a challenging and diverse range of experiences. These people open them selves up to a range of situations and new experiences.
Stepping outside of the boundaries and comforts of what they have built for themselves to allow them to stay outside of the dramas and confrontations which come from the moments in our pasts which define our futures and the way we deal with the life we have created for ourselves.
The blossoming of romance between two of the characters creates such a stunning challenge provided by different family backgrounds which meld into such a lovely and welcoming bundle of love, respect and connection.
Aimee has demons to face. Her move to Kalgoorlie brings these to the surface in more ways than one and ensures that she creates a new future for herself as her past unravels around her. She is a beautifully complex character and her past challenges have created a developing story line which allows you to feel both emotionally involved but also invested in her future and how you see her life panning out.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this story. Thanks for the chance Beauty and Lace
The Secrets We Keep by Shirley Patton is set in 1980’s Kalgoorie, an Australian country town. It depicted the story of Aimee a social worker, a career she had chosen as a result of a social worker who had assisted her through issues in her past.
I enjoyed reading this novel, as it addressed social issues from the 1980’s time period in a captivating manner. The book uncovered secrets from Aimee’s past during a tea leaf reading.
The characters in the book interested me, as they had diverse backgrounds and I was intrigued to find out how their relationships would develop throughout.
Thank you to Harlequin Publishers and Beauty and Lace for the opportunity to read this compelling novel.
‘The Secrets We Keep’ is a great Aussie drama, set in WA mining town of Kalgoorlie. It centres around the caring, but sometimes hard to grasp, Aimee who has moved to the small town from the big smoke.
It took me a little while to get my bearings with this book & to realise it was set in another era, before computers, mobiles & social media.
I gather the authour Shirley Patton has worked in social services in the past as she seems to have an intimate knowledge of department workings and the clientele they must assist.
The Steele family (Aimee’s clients) tore at my heartstrings, with young Dad Paul facing certain death with miner’s cancer.
I loved the way this book was written. It was like a familiar warm blanket, reminiscent of shows like ‘A Country Practice’.
The Secrets We Keep is a great read & I’ll be looking out for more of Shirley Patton’s work.
Thankyou Beauty and Lace and Harlequin Australia for the opportunity to read this book.
I Chose this book because the beautiful cover was very captivating.
The Secrets we Keep was a good easy read with many interesting characters along with their own set of problems and secrets…
Aimee, the main character and a social worker has moved to an outback mining town set in the 1980’s hopefully to escape her own demons.
There are many issues ranging from work related health problems to aboriginal degradation along with Aimee having to face up to her own problems…
Found this book hard to put down.
Thank you Beauty and Lace for the opportunity to read this book. It was admittedly a slow start for me but I’m happy I stuck with it until the end. I enjoyed the characters lives unfolding and issues being resolved throughout the book. Kerry was one of my favourite characters and her story unfurling and her character grow throughout the book. I also very much liked the tea leaf reading. The book addressed social and family issues amongst a few others. It was lovely to read about a mining family especially having a background in Mining myself. I look forward to reading more books from this author in the future,
The Secrets We Keep written by Australian author Shirley Patton is set in the 80s. Aimee the lead is a social worker who relocated to Kalgoorlie to start over, she became a social worker after one helped her through her own traumatic past but as she begins her life in Kalgoorlie her secrets begin to surface. A novel filled with more than just Aimee’s secrets that are surfacing the storyline is written brilliantly.
The secrets we keep was a very enjoyable read and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I enjoyed the 80’s theme and as the book progressed I enjoyed it more, it is very well written and I would recommend it!