Family Secrets

The manner in which the past often catches up with events in the present is the basis for Family Secrets, a story involving three generations of strong-minded women, centred around Kate (13). Kate and her mother, Anne, live in a flat in London. Anne grew up on a farm in the west of Ireland, but has not returned there since she fell out with her mother and left, pregnant with Kate, at the age of seventeen. Kate knows nothing of this and only become aware that she has a grandmother in Ireland when a letter unexpectedly arrives for Anne telling her that her mother is seriously ill. They travel to Ireland where Kate encounters many aspects of her past, her present and possibly her future: her grandmother, her father, new friends and first love, and most important of all, a place with which she feels a close affinity. The possibilities for tension in the narrative are not always realised, but in what one guesses may be a first novel, there is a strong sense of place and a straightforward attempt to describe Kate's development during this, for her, growing summer. The cover is impressive although it may convey the impression that this book is for an older readership than that to which it is likely to appeal.