Antoine Rey decides to surprise his sister, Melanie, with a 40th birthday visit back to a seaside resort town where they used to spend summers as children. They were both quite young the last time they had been to Noirmoutier Island, as it had been 30 years since their final visit. However, as the weekend moves on, both Antoine and Melanie recall their last visit there with their grandparents, aunt, and mother. Their father, an important attorney, came to spend a few days with them when he could. It was also the last summer that they spent with their mother before her unexpected death only a few months later.

The last night of their stay at the island hotel, Melanie has a sudden memory of something that obviously upsets her a great deal. She is so disturbed by it that, as she is about to tell Antoine what she remembered, she momentarily loses control of the car she is driving and they have a serious accident. Antoine escapes with a few minor injuries. Melanie, on the other hand, is quite seriously injured. However, she will be fine with lots of healing time, although she has no memory of what happened with the accident or what she had been about to tell Antoine.

This event adds to the distresses that Antoine is already dealing with; his recent divorce from a wife he still loves, two of his children turning into problematic and sullen teenagers, and a career he's no longer certain he wants. As Antoine tries to move through his day-to-day existence, he's continuously met with one challenge after another until the day he meets a woman that just may prove to be his salvation.

Suddenly, Melanie remembers what she had recalled on the island visit. The memory is about their mother and is something so shocking that Antoine immediately knows he must find out more. His odyssey into the past proves to be even more puzzling until he reaches the end of it. Will Antoine find the answers he seeks?

It's hard to talk about A SECRET KEPT without revealing too much of the plot. This is a book that is to be savored, much like a fine wine. If you can, try to have a complete afternoon to enjoy this one because, as one chapter flows easily into the next, it's a very hard book to put down before the last page.

So many books have the potential to make the transition to the big screen. However, A SECRET KEPT is one of those books that could easily become an awarding winning film. It will capture you, pull you in, and tug at your heart more than once. In the end, the story is simply what it is; realistic, mysterious, and, ultimately, both sad and uplifting...a tale that you cannot easily move away from.

Book Summary

This stunning new novel from Tatiana de Rosnay, author of the acclaimed New York Times bestseller Sarah’s Key, plumbs the depths of complex family relationships and the power of a past secret to change everything in the present.

It all began with a simple seaside vacation, a brother and sister recapturing their childhood. 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.

Recovering from the accident in a nearby hospital, Mélanie tries to recall what caused her to crash. Antoine encounters an unexpected ally: sexy, streetwise Angèle, a mortician who will teach him new meanings for the words life, love and death. Suddenly, however, the past comes swinging back at both siblings, burdened with a dark truth about their mother, Clarisse.

Trapped in the wake of a shocking 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 learn the truth about his family and himself the hard way. By turns thrilling, seductive and destructive, with a lingering effect that is bittersweet and redeeming, A Secret Kept is the story of a modern family, the invisible ties that hold it together, and the impact it has throughout life.