Book Review - The Secret of Lies - Barbara Forte Abate

Title:  The Secret of Lies

Author: Barbara Forte Abate

Review:   From the title I could tell that this book would not have a happy go lucky feeling about it and yet the first few chapters did and I enjoyed the life of two young girls living their summers on a beach with their aunt and uncle.  As the book progressed you could feel the door shutting on all that blissful sunshine and more of the darkness seeping in.  I wasn’t shocked at the lie that hit the family.  Terrible things happen and this was a tragedy that somehow I wish could have been avoided by them and by anyone out there.

I think moving forward with a devastating life change as the one in the book would have been almost impossible and I think the characters did as well as could be expected.  I liked the fact that the cast were human and had human frailties and feelings.  No super human powers and you could feel their pain throughout the book.

I hate sad endings and I don’t even watch movies where I know someone dies and so this book hit me hard and yet I still finished with a feeling of hope.  Ash is one person I would like to know and I think that he is God sent to this family, yet not over the top.

This book will have you thinking way before you finish it.  Give it a try and I think you will be surprised by how much you think about your own life.

Publisher: Published April 21st 2010 by Dog EarPublishing, LLC

ISBN: 9781608444182

Copyright: 2011

Pages: 304

Quick Review: 4 stars (out of 5)

Why I Read It:  Sent by the author or review.

Synopsis: Propelled by an insurmountable sense of desperation, Stevie Burke is recklessly abandoning home, husband, and outwardly contented life under cover of night; at last resigned to defeat in her long battle against the tortured memories of her past.

Days later, lost and floundering in a dreary motel room without plan or destination, it is a long ago song playing on the radio that gently tugs Stevie back through the dust of remembrance. 1957 - The last summer spent at the ancient house overlooking the North Atlantic. A season which had unfolded with abundant promise, but then spiraled horribly out of control - torn apart by a shattering tragedy that remains splintered in fragments upon her soul. And it is only now, when Stevie at last lifts her eyes to stare deep into the heart of her long sequestered memories, that the long held secrets of past and future are at last unveiled.

Author Biography: I grew up in a small town in Dutchess County, New York, the third of five children. Although I started my first novel in 4th grade, I didn't recognize what would eventually become a lifelong passion until several years later as I found my thoughts routinely wandering off to inhabit imagined places -- spinning elaborate tales curiously populated by ever-changing collections of strange and unique characters that seemed to arrive from nowhere, yet remained, incredibly content to live within my fictitious worlds.

It would be impossible to determine or otherwise explain where the intense obsession to draw pictures and unreel emotion with words on paper originates from, just as it would be unfathomable to ever abandon. It is simply there - deep, unquenchable, eternal.

Influences are everywhere and in abundance - people I've known over a lifetime, as well as those who have merely crossed my path and gone, yet touched in such a way as to remain memorable. Places I've been or merely absorbed - fallen into through the pull of a photograph. Experiences of love, loss, injury, joy, and impossible tragedy. Events in our everyday world that sink so deeply they cannot be discarded from thought or memory. And more then any single thing, my Divine Creator who inspires me in all things - not simply with the desire to create, but the faith to pursue and persevere for as long as it takes.

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