The secrets of us

Book Cover
Average Rating
Publisher
Thomas & Mercer
Publication Date
[2021]
Language
English

Description

Dangerously addictive, The Secrets of Us is a pulse-pounding exploration of a disturbed psyche and the bond between two sisters desperate to escape a troubled past.

Foster sisters Krystal and Nichole have always been there for each other, so when Nichole is committed to a psychiatric hospital after trying to kill her husband, Krystal drops everything to defend her.

Scarred by a hard upbringing, Nichole and Krystal managed to construct comfortable lives for themselves. Krystal became a respected lawyer, and Nichole was happily married to an architect—until Nichole starts raving that her husband isn’t her husband, believing that he’s an imposter.

Driven by fierce loyalty, Krystal starts asking questions, but she’s not sure she can bear the answers. Her investigation leads to the sisters’ dark shared past…to a horrible tragedy and a well-guarded lie that cemented their sisterly bond.

But that lie can’t kill the truth—the battered, gasping, clawing truth that’s coming for them both. Now Krystal and Nichole must both fight for the lives they’ve built before they’re consumed by the one they left behind.

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ISBN
9781542027960

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Published Reviews

Publisher's Weekly Review

Krystal and Nichole, the stars of this twisty psychological thriller from Berry (The Best of Friends), met in foster care as young girls and consider themselves sisters. The two are raised on a remote Iowa farm by the tyrannical Mrs. Wheeler. One day, when Krystal and Nichole are 17, they see Mrs. Wheeler's disturbed daughter, Veronica, push a playmate, Alice, out of the barn loft, causing her death. Mrs. Wheeler threatens to tell the authorities Krystal and Nichole were responsible unless they stay silent. Nichole, the more sensitive of the two, starts to hear Alice's voice telling her to harm Veronica. After a failed attempt to do so, Nichole runs away with Krystal in the middle of the night. Flash forward 20 years. In Texas, Krystal is a successful attorney, and Nichole lives a suspiciously perfect life with her husband, Aiden, until she winds up in a mental institution for trying to burn him alive. Berry builds tension by alternating between past and present, and keeps the reader guessing as to Aiden's role in the drama. Those looking for an emotional roller-coaster ride will be rewarded. Agent: Christina Hogrebe, Jane Rotrosen Agency. (June)

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Kirkus Book Review

Foster sisters grown to adulthood share unspeakable secrets that bind them together even as they tear them apart. Krystal Benson and Nichole Fischer have always been close, and not just because their birthdays are only two weeks apart. At the foster home where stern farm widow Mrs. Wheeler reared them with her own daughter, Veronica, after their families abandoned them, they were inseparable until the day they ran away. Even now, years later, they live in the same Texas town and talk constantly, holding back no secrets from each other. So Krystal is shocked when Nichole, brought to Riverside East Hospital from a house fire that seriously injured her husband, Aiden, acts so aggressively that she's sedated, dosed with antipsychotics, and tied down. She's beyond shocked when Detective Dean Sparks tells her that the evidence indicates that Nichole set the fire herself and deliberately kept her husband from escaping. Why would Nichole have possibly done such a thing? Krystal wonders, even though she's so keenly aware that the foster sisters' escape from Mrs. Wheeler's farm is bound up in a secret that's haunted Nichole ever since. As Krystal watches Aiden's wealthy family close ranks against her sister and prepare to file a criminal complaint against her, Berry unreels a series of flashbacks to those fatal last days at the farm that unleash a perfect storm of terrors past and present. Though the answers aren't as powerful as the questions, you'll be relieved just to wake up from this nightmare. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
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Publishers Weekly Reviews

Krystal and Nichole, the stars of this twisty psychological thriller from Berry (The Best of Friends), met in foster care as young girls and consider themselves sisters. The two are raised on a remote Iowa farm by the tyrannical Mrs. Wheeler. One day, when Krystal and Nichole are 17, they see Mrs. Wheeler's disturbed daughter, Veronica, push a playmate, Alice, out of the barn loft, causing her death. Mrs. Wheeler threatens to tell the authorities Krystal and Nichole were responsible unless they stay silent. Nichole, the more sensitive of the two, starts to hear Alice's voice telling her to harm Veronica. After a failed attempt to do so, Nichole runs away with Krystal in the middle of the night. Flash forward 20 years. In Texas, Krystal is a successful attorney, and Nichole lives a suspiciously perfect life with her husband, Aiden, until she winds up in a mental institution for trying to burn him alive. Berry builds tension by alternating between past and present, and keeps the reader guessing as to Aiden's role in the drama. Those looking for an emotional roller-coaster ride will be rewarded. Agent: Christina Hogrebe, Jane Rotrosen Agency. (June)

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