3.5* ( )

My Rating: 4.5 Stars

Clare Farrell has inherited an old farmhouse in County Meath, Ireland. The timing couldn't be more perfect because she had been looking for a way to end a very unhappy marriage. She takes control and leaves her husband for Ireland and is determined to make a go of it. As she starts to reupholster a chair, she finds something that looks like it might be the key to discovering her past.

The timeline shifts in this story to July 1919 with Ellen O'Brien, young, idealistic and in love. She leaves home for a job that ends up involving her in the war currently taking place. The man she is in love with is involved in the turmoil that is destroying Ireland. What ensues then changes her life and that of others irrevocably.

What Clare finds has been buried to decades and she might just find a long-lost relative. Meanwhile, her sons offer great moral support. All the while, her past with her husband is never far from her mind, especially as he is not quite ready to let their marriage go.

The Forgotten Secret seamlessly shifts between past and secret. The past is rather exciting, albeit tragic with regard to Ireland struggling for independence from Britain. Also, what Ellen experienced for a time there in Ireland, at what was referred to as The Magdalene Laundries, was nothing less than tragic. Sadly, what happened there, also referred to as asylums was based on real history. With regard to Clare, we have a woman needing to reestablish herself, and even entertaining new friends and a possible love interest.

This was an enjoyable story in essence, although quite sad at times. Not only was I able to read it in one sitting, Most times when history is mixed in with a dual timeline like this it can be rather interesting, as this book proved. I am definitely looking forward to much more from Kathleen McGurl.

Many thanks to HQ Digital and to NetGalley for this ARC to review in exchange for my honest opinion. ( )

I've been meaning to read a Kathleen McGurl book for ages and there just hasn't been the right time, so I'm really pleased to have been able to read The Forgotten Secret. I do love a dual timeline story.

The book begins with a historical note and I was really pleased that it was there and not at the end as it gives a brief overview of Irish political history, the rebellions and the wars, right up to the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. I found this invaluable as I was largely ignorant of the details of the conflicts in Ireland.

The story itself starts with Clare, a 49 year old woman visiting a farmhouse in Ireland that she has just inherited from her uncle. She's there with her overbearing and controlling husband, somebody I took an instant dislike to. Thankfully, Clare decides to finally ditch him and move alone to the farmhouse and in doing so makes a new life for herself. In the house she discovers a couple of items relating to something that happened almost 100 years earlier.

Which brings me to the other part of the dual timeline, Ellen's story. In 1919 the First World War was just over but the Irish War of Independence was just beginning. Ellen gets a job working as a maid for a woman who is involved and her sweetheart is also fighting for an independent Ireland.

If I say any more then I am in danger of revealing too much. What I will say is that these two stories are intertwined in a way that I didn't guess, which I thought was clever on the author's part. I think I would have liked them to have started to join up a little earlier in the story but that's only a minor thing and I enjoyed both stories very much indeed.

Ellen's story in particular really interested me. As I said before, I knew little of the conflict in Ireland and I just didn't realise how much it had affected people for so long. I found it fascinating and also heartbreaking. The last 25% or so of the book really saddened me.

The Forgotten Secret is a lovely read and one that I thought was very well researched. I also found it really easy to read and I'd definitely read another of Kathleen McGurl's novels. ( )

I am a sucker for a great cover and it was that along with the tag line ‘For fans of Kate Morton’ that drew me towards this book and I am so glad it did. The cover also had the same feel to it as Laura Madeleine’s brilliant book The Secrets Between Us and Nikola Scott’s My Mother’s Shadow. Both outstanding novels by authors in the same stratosphere as Kate Morton and now Kathleen McGurl will be another worthy author to add to that list.

If you have never read either of those books and you enjoy this one I highly recommended adding all three to you TBR lists, just be prepared to lose a lot of sleep! I have now lost another night of beauty sleep to this little beauty of a book, I literally read it in one sitting right through the night.

Set in Ireland switching between Clare in 2016 and Ellen in the 1920’s it is two women’s stories of love, loss, hope and courage in two very different ways and two very different times yet converging to an ending that would make a grown man weep!

Ellen’s story by far and away is the star of the show for me, her character dances off the pages and is instantly relatable, we have remember what it is to be young and in love for the first time, and that is how we first meet her, meeting up with her childhood sweetheart after his return from boarding school.

The history of Ireland is also brought to life through Ellen’s story, a lot of which I hadn’t known and was presented in a non glorified interesting way that shows both sides of the ‘Troubles’ in Ireland at that time.

Clare’s story at times had me shaking my head in disbelieve and others chuckling to myself but didn’t grab me quite as fully, but I was still rooting for her and her new-found independence. Her husband makes my ex husband seem like a prince and that’s saying something 😂 And I dare you to read the word ‘eejit’ without doing it in the voice of Agnes Brown! (Mrs Brown’s Boys) Her voice kept creeping in through some of the dialogue! Sorry if I have now put that voice inside your head too as you read this book!!

A clever page turner of a book that will whisk you away to Ireland and leave a part of your heart back there with it.

The Forgotten Secret: A heartbreaking and gripping historical novel for fans of Kate Morton will be published in the UK on 01 March 2019 and can be pre ordered now from Amazon UK

A big thank you to the author Kathleen McGurl, publishers HQ Digital and NetGalley for my digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest and independent review.

https://debbiesbookreviews.wordpress.com/2019/02/13/the-forgotten-secret-by-kath... ( )