Book Review: The Secrets We Carried by Mary McNear

The Secrets We Carried

by Mary McNear

HarperCollins | Amazon | B&N

368 pages

William Morrow Paperbacks 

Readers who love Susan Wiggs and Susan Mallery will adore New York Times bestselling author Mary McNear newest novel. A young woman travels home to Butternut Lake, confronting her past and the tragedy she and her friends have silently carried with them for over a decade while also facing an unknown future.

Butternut Lake is an idyllic place—but for one woman, her return to the lake town she once called home is bittersweet…

Sometimes life changes in an instant.

Quinn LaPointe grew up on beautiful Butternut Lake, safe, secure, sure of her future. But after a high school tragedy, she left for college and never looked back. Becoming a successful writer in Chicago, she worked to keep out the dark memories of an accident that upended her life. But now, after ten years, she’s finally returned home.

Butternut is the same, and yet everything is changed. Gabriel Shipp, once her very best friend, doesn’t want anything to do with her. The charming guy she remembers is now brooding and withdrawn. Tanner Lightman, the seductive brother of her late boyfriend, wants her to stick around. Annika Bergstrom, an old classmate who once hated Quinn, is now friendly. Everyone, it seems, has a secret.

Determined to come to terms with the tragedy and rebuild old relationships, Quinn settles into Loon Bay Cabins, a rustic but cozy lakeside resort, where she begins writing down her memories of the year before the accident. Her journey through the past leads her to some surprising discoveries about the present. As secrets are revealed and a new love emerges, Quinn finds that understanding the past is the key to the future.

My Rating: 

Favorite Quotes:

Northern Superior High School had been built in 1930, when Americans still had a reverence for public education, and the two-story brick building, with a white stone arch over the entranceway and two white stone columns flanking it, spoke to the seriousness of the work to be done inside.

Her closest girlfriend, Katrina, referred to these relationships as Quinn’s “eleventh-month specials.” This wasn’t intentional on Quinn’s part. It wasn’t as if she kept an eye on the calendar as the anniversary of their first date approached. It was more like an inner mechanism of hers sensed a shifting of the light, a changing of the seasons. Either way, she was apt to end things before the earth had made a full rotation around the sun.

My Review:

This is one of those books that is hard to put down as I sense something important to the plot is coming that I really need to know and it is right around the corner, and it was true, but there are several more somethings, and then a few more I wasn’t expecting.  I went at this book like an alcoholic on a binge as I couldn’t find a stopping place, nor would I have been willing to stop had I found one.  Ms. McNear’s compelling characters and insightful and emotive writing held me in place and while it wasn’t a thriller or a suspenseful read, my curiosity was tripped while my heart was being mercilessly squeezed.  This was the second well-textured and maddeningly paced book of Ms. McNear’s that I have devoured - and in much the same manner.  I am greedy for all her words as this talented scribe has strong word voodoo.  I was provided with a review copy of this excellent book by HarperCollins   and TLC Book Tours.

Empress DJ

About Mary McNear

Mary McNear, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Butternut Lake series, writes in a local doughnut shop, where she sips Diet Pepsi, observes the hubbub of neighborhood life, and tries to resist the constant temptation of freshly made doughnuts. Mary bases her novels on a lifetime of summers spent in a small town on a lake in the northern Midwest.

Find out more about Mary at her website, and connect with her on Facebook and Twitter.