“Two women. One house. And a secret that spans decades…”

  • Book: The Secret Diary
  • Location: Langham, Norfolk
  • Author: Anna Stuart

Review Author: Yvonne@FictionBooks

Location

Content

Whoa! Don’t take those tissues away, I’m not quite cried out just yet!

Happy tears, sad tears, who knows where one ends and the other begins!

I read for five make that six, good reasons, all the ‘e’s: Enjoyment, Entertainment, Escapism, Emotion, Education and Engagement. Seldom does a single book meet all of these criteria in equal proportions, leave me wanting more and sad to have closed that final page – until now! Add to that: Beautiful, Heart-breaking, Heart-warming, Uplifting and Inspirational and you are getting close to describing the emotions this lovely story evoked.

Wonderful dual timeline tales, told in the voices of Nancy from 1945/6 and Lorna from the present day, both set in the lovely Norfolk countryside, with a quintessentially English ‘chocolate-box’ cottage at their heart. Nancy’s diaries, hidden for decades, help to tell her side of the story, through the capable voice of Lorna, for whom they are a healing and cathartic release from her own recent sense of loss and desolation. The unfolding saga is an important piece of cultural and societal history, an evolving love story which transcends time and generations, and a rich sense of family which held me close, welcomed me in and which I didn’t want to leave.

After a devastating loss, which has left Lorna a lone parent to her two young sons, they have gone to recover and begin the healing process, at the home of her mother and her new husband in rural Norfolk. The cottage has been in step-father David’s family since back before WWII (Nancy, it transpires, was his mother), and in fact, the separate annex where Lorna and the boys are to stay, hasn’t been decorated since then and still boasts all its original fixtures from Nancy’s day. History teacher Lorna discovers a secret drawer, in which she finds Nancy’s post-war diary. The ensuing journey of enlightenment for the entire family, is what forms the basis of this truly engaging storyline, with all its twists and turns and long-buried secrets. The complexities of the investigations help to begin the healing process for Lorna, as she learns that Nancy’s homecoming from her wartime service duties, as she tries to fit back into a woman’s role in peacetime, is every bit as fraught as her own journey of loss. But as two strong, resourceful and resilient women, divided by time alone, Nancy and Lorna prevail in spectacular fashion.

This complex multi-layered story, is beautifully structured and richly textured, yet written with the lightest of touches and guiding hands by an author who knows exactly where she is leading her readers on their journey and just how many tears most of them are likely to shed along the way! Rich in atmosphere and offering a genuine sense of time and place, this is a real story to escape into. Anna is an author who is undoubtedly also a consummate storyteller, whose lovely way with words adds a unique depth and range to her work and keeps the dual timeline changes, clean and seamless. At the same time, she has an assured ease and confidence in her writing style and narrative, which makes the reading experience profoundly touching, visually descriptive and captures the emotion of those ‘heart and humour’ moments wonderfully.

Anna has created an engaging, multi-faceted cast of characters, from both time zones, who are completely relatable, well defined and developed, and in whom I was totally invested. They have been afforded a strong voice to tell their own story, which they do with some genuinely believable dialogue and in an addictive style, keeping true to the era. Anna has not been afraid to expose their individual emotional complexities and vulnerabilities, and their divergent family dynamics, which are dealt with sympathetically and with some excellent interpersonal interactions.

The promise of renewed hope going forwards, for those who dare to dream – thanks to those who have dreamed and been brave before us!

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