No Safe Secret

No Safe Secret

Adult Fiction
One of the most powerful, hard to put down books I have read
this year is Fern Michaels' No Safe Secret. In a gripping narrative
that segues seamlessly between a woman's past and present, it argues
very cogently that secrets one spends decades running away from can
exert a noxious influence for decades and reveal themselves at the
worst possible times.
Molly is a woman lots of folks would envy. She and her dentist
husband have all the accoutrements of success: the fine house, the
pricey clothes, the top of the line cars. What they spend on
entertaining alone is probably more than what many people subsist on.
Then there are the children: twin boy Harvard graduates and a daughter
about to start her college education.
There is, however, a lot of rot beneath the veneer of
perfection. Molly's dentist husband is self centered, demanding
perfection of all around him and punishing for anything less. He is
verbally and physically abusive to her. His first wife died under
suspicious circumstances. Molly's stepsons, following in their dad's
footsteps, are cruel and disrespectful. Her only family ally is
daughter Kristen.
As if things weren't bad enough, an anonymous caller informs
Molly that he knows who she is and what she did in a past she has done
everything possible to put behind her--a past in which she was Maddy
Carmichael, the grossly neglected daughter of a promiscuous drug
addict, and a long awaited prom turned into a night of tragedy and
terror.
No Safe Secret is a must read on two levels. It's a perfectly
paced suspense story. Additionally it emphasizes the scars inflicted
by rape. In a country where a mam can be sentenced to a mere six
months for raping an unconscious woman that is a message we can never
get too much of.
On a personal note, I've found out that there can be a difficult
balancing act when there are secrets that can effect how a parent
feels for decades. You want your kids to understand there are reasons
you have areas of weakness and vulnerability. However, it can be hard
to believe they are ever old enough to know about say a father who was
never capable of parenting putting you in danger and not just once.
A great big shout out to all who, through no fault of their own, have
secrets.
jules hathaway


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