A Secret Kept [Paperback]

Tatiana de Rosnay (Author)

Book Description

Release date: September 13, 2011

Antoine Rey thought he had the perfect surprise for his sister Mélanie’s birthday: a weekend by the sea at Noirmoutier Island , where the pair spent many happy childhood summers playing on the beach.  It had been too long, Antoine thought, since they’d returned to the island—over thirty years, since their mother died and the family holidays ceased.  But the island’s haunting beauty triggers more than happy memories; it reminds Mélanie of something unexpected and deeply disturbing about their last island summer.  When, on the drive home to Paris, she finally summons the courage to reveal what she knows to Antoine, her emotions overcome her and she loses control of the car.

Trapped in the wake of a family secret shrouded by taboo, Antoine must confront his past and also his troubled relationships with his own children.  How well does he really know his mother, his children, even himself?  Suddenly fragile on all fronts – as a son, a husband, a brother and a father – Antoine Rey will soon learn the shocking truth about his family and himself.

By turns thrilling and seductive, with a lingering effect that is bittersweet and redeeming, A Secret Kept is the story of a modern family and the invisible ties that hold it together.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The long-delayed resolution of a French family's mystery electrifies de Rosnay's (Sarah's Key) glimpse at the crushing cost of keeping secrets. Parisian architect Antoine Rey and his sister, Mélanie, celebrate her 40th birthday on the island where they vacationed as children with their mother, until she died there in 1974. Upon returning, Mélanie is gripped by a shocking repressed memory and loses control of the car. After a brief spell of amnesia, she tells her brother what it was she remembered: their mother had been in love with a woman. As a skeptical Antoine investigates this twist in their mother's past, an upsetting chain of events unfurls: his daughter's best friend drops dead of a heart condition at only 14 years of age; his teenage son is arrested; and he learns that his father is dying of cancer. Antoine gets support in his quest from a new lover, a Harley-riding mortician who teaches him how respecting death helps one to embrace life. This perceptive portrait of a middle-aged man's delayed coming-of-age rates as a seductive, suspenseful, and trés formidable keeper.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Frenchman Antoine Rey wants to do something special for his sister Melanie on her fortieth birthday, so he surprises her with a weekend trip to Noirmoutier Island, where the two spent many idyllic childhood summers until their mother’s untimely death. While the weekend itself goes well, on the drive back home to Paris, Melanie is overpowered by a memory of her mother and drives off the road. She suffers extensive injuries, and as she heals in the hospital, Antoine obsesses over just what it was that his sister recalled. He is determined to find answers, but where and how? There are few surviving family members, and those remaining resist his unsettling queries. Meanwhile, distractions abound, as Antoine takes up with the sexy hospital mortician (who wears black and drives a Harley-Davidson, ooh la la). He and his ex-wife must also deal with their badly behaving son, who’s recently landed in jail. Internationally best-selling French novelist de Rosnay renders swift, lucid prose and steady suspense (even though one of the novel’s big secrets is revealed mid-tale). Expect demand among fans of both literary mystery and high-end romance. --Allison Block --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin; Reprint edition (September 13, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312553498
• ISBN-13: 978-0312553494
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (198 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #93,091 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Tatiana's latest novel, "A Secret Kept", was published at Saint Martin's Press in September 2010. This book is to be published in 17 countries and is already a bestseller in Germany, France and Holland.(Original title : "Boomerang")

Tatiana's books have sold over 3 million copies around the world.

Tatiana de Rosnay was born on September 28th, 1961 in the suburbs of Paris. She is of English, French and Russian descent. Her father is French scientist Joël de Rosnay, her grandfather was painter Gaëtan de Rosnay. Tatiana's paternal great-grandmother was Russian actress Natalia Rachewskïa, director of the Leningrad Pushkin Theatre from 1925 to 1949.

Tatiana's mother is English, Stella Jebb, daughter of diplomat Gladwyn Jebb, and great-great-granddaughter of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the British engineer. Tatiana is also the niece of historian Hugh Thomas. Tatiana was raised in Paris and then in Boston, when her father taught at MIT in the 70's. She moved to England in the early 80's and obtained a Bachelor's degree in English literature at the University of East Anglia, in Norwich.

Returning to Paris in 1984, Tatiana became press attaché for Christie's and then Paris Editor for Vanity Fair magazine till 1993. Since 1992, Tatiana has published ten novels in France (published at Fayard, Plon and EHO).

Sarah's Key is her first novel written in her mother tongue, English. Sarah's Key is to be published in 30 countries and has sold over two million copies worldwide. Film rights have also been sold and a movie starring Kristin Scott-Thomas has been released.

Tatiana is married and has two children, Louis and Charlotte. She lives in Paris with her family.

Her website is at http://www.tatianaderosnay.com/
Her Twitter feed : http://twitter.com/tatianaderosnay

Amazon Author Rankbeta 

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#68 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Historical

#77 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Historical

#68 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Historical

#77 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Historical

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

165 of 173 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A journey of discovery and a tale of a family... August 14, 2010

By Denise Crawford TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

I really enjoyed this very interesting story about a French family and the unraveling of the "secret" that was at the heart of the mystery in this novel. Although set in modern day France, the narrative has a timeless quality about it as a forty-ish, newly divorced man, Antoine Rey, starts investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of his mother, Clarisse, after his sister Melanie is injured in an automobile accident after suddenly remembering something dramatically suspicious about their mother while the two of them are off on holiday.

While his sister is hospitalized and during her recovery from her injuries, Antoine becomes compelled to find out more about his mother and who she was and how she died since both of her children feel as if they never really knew her and the subject has never been talked about within the family. In the course of his inquiries, he discovers and faces the truth about a mother he loved deeply but lost far too soon.

Antoine is a very complex man who is simultaneously dealing with his love and longing for his ex-wife and their three children-- two of whom are surly and distant teenagers -- and with the sudden urge to finally know more about his mother. He suffers loneliness and self doubt, bored with his career as architect, and morose about his lack of close relationships with his children and his father's family. I found him an interesting character with a lot of depth and sentimentality that led to many moments of self examination and introspection. The other supportive characters were not so well drawn, but did provide the means for Antoine to interact with and to push the narrative along.

I read the novel in one sitting. I don't think the story is so much about the revelation of the secret or even the nature of it, but more about the process of discovery and about the importance of exploring the bonds of family relationships and about knowing each other. Do children really ever know their parents -- and should they know everything? It is human nature to question and to want answers to the age-old question -- "why"...

Recommend.

128 of 143 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars The Formula Fails August 5, 2010

By Roger Brunyate TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

With her first novel, SARAH'S KEY, Tatiana de Rosnay hit upon a winning formula: link a contemporary story set in modern Paris to events that took place a generation or more earlier. Long-buried secrets can work well as a plot device. But the secrets in that earlier book were no small matter; they concerned nothing less than the fate of children in the French Holocaust, and their story was told with a simple directness that quite overshadowed the modern romance paired with it. In A SECRET KEPT, however, the modern romance is virtually the entire story; it is fuller and more detailed than the relevant sections of the earlier book, but is still relatively trivial. And the buried secret, whose disclosure is postponed by every means possible, turns out not to be much of a secret at all, and such tension as there was just dribbles away. This time around, the formula fails.

Antoine Rey is a fortyish Parisian architect dealing mainly in office reconstructions. He is bored with his job and has let his life fall apart since his wife Astrid has left him for a younger man. But he cares enough for his sister Mélanie to take her for her fortieth birthday to Noirmoutier Island, off the Atlantic coast southwest of Nantes, where they used to holiday as children. The visit awakens memories of their mother, Clarisse, one of which so upsets Mélanie that she crashes the car before she can tell it. The remainder of the book is the much-delayed search for that memory and the understanding of its implications. But it is at least equally about Antoine's struggles with his own life, his problems with his teenage children, his difficult relationship with his domineering father, and his self-pity over the loss of Astrid. Parts of this do ring quite true, actually, but when a most improbable romantic partner suddenly drops into Antoine's lap, I lost most of my credulity.

But still kept reading. The writing prattles along serviceably enough, though marred by passages in which the author just tries too hard: "I think of her caffeine-stained teeth, her furry upper lip, her patchouli perfume, her Mozartean Queen of the Night screeches, and my disgust, impatience, and annoyance bubble up with the efficient precision of a pressure cooker." A review on the back cover suggests that the book should be read in one sitting. It almost needs to be, for you read on in the hope that de Rosnay will ultimately come up with something significant enough to make this excursion worthwhile. She doesn't.

43 of 51 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Pretentious Tedium September 5, 2010

By deeper waters

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

I am always intrigued by the stories about families, particularly when the same experience holds such different meaning for the individuals involved. While the book started off with potential, it quickly became a tiring and tiresome struggle to read. The lives of the Rey family, historically and in the present, are heavy with repression, judgment, disappointment, and the burden of meeting the expectations of others. Translated from the French (possibly part of the problem?), De Rosnay's writing comes across as a MFA assignment that asked the student to make maximal use of metaphor, epiphany, conflict and other literary techniques to create a reading experience that is congruent with the inner turmoil of the characters. With the exception of the long dead Clarisse, none of these sad souls ever came alive or came together into a believable whole. While that may have been the author's intent and from an artistic perspective, this may be an amazingly successful novel, it did not grab me and would never be a book that I would recommend to anyone else.