The Last Secret

But her flamboyant husband Cesare has other ideas. And as his eye strays away from his wife, those close to the couple start to wonder if he really is who he says he is. Kitty Deverill has come to terms with her life with her husband Robert, and their two children. Born in England in , Santa Montefiore grew up in Hampshire. She is married to writer Simon Sebag Montefiore. They live with their two children, Lily and Sasha, in London. Visit her at www.

Get our latest book recommendations, author news, and sweepstakes right to your inbox. By clicking 'Sign me up' I acknowledge that I have read and agree to the privacy policy and terms of use , and the transfer of my personal data to the United States, where the privacy laws may be different than those in my country of residence. Tell us what you like, so we can send you books you'll love. Join our mailing list! Price may vary by retailer. Sep 13, Amanda rated it liked it. I was interested the whole time but it was also an extremely annoying plot.

Mar 03, Bonnie Brody rated it it was amazing. There are some books and authors that I'd like to have with me on a desert island.

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Mary McGarry Morris is one of those writers. I have always been drawn to her books, their dark and brooding nature with the sentience of doom and fatality omnipresent. I can almost smell the darkness when I read her novels, feel the desperation of the dissolute and the outsider.

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I have read all but two of her books and those two I'm saving for a very special time and place - - a desert island kind of moment. She's There are some books and authors that I'd like to have with me on a desert island. She's THAT good a writer. The Last Secret is powerful and unflinching. It builds up slowly but the tension and angst keep coming. The characters are disgruntled, desperate, despairing, fragile, with huge currents roiling through their being as they try to keep their inner and outer storms at bay. Some characters are loathsome, despicable and pathetic. These are juxtaposed with others who try to stay strong, keep one foot in front of the other, and maintain independence at all costs.

Morris is so excellent at portraying is that while people try to fool themselves into believing that they have certain attributes better, worse, or more unique than others, most people are actually quite alike in that they harbor these components: When she was seventeen years old, Nora ran off with a troubled young man named Eddie Hawkins.

During the week she was with him she drank a lot, got into situations that were outside her comfort range and behaved in ways that she thought were completely outside her moral compass. At one point Eddie asks her to come on to an older man and encourage him to follow her outside a bar so that Eddie can rob him. The older man follows her and something dreadful happens. Nora is never sure of the exact details but she has a recurrent nightmare that the man has his face bashed in by a tire iron and that she is the one who commits the crime.

What she also remembers, is that after the 'incident' she is covered with blood and that she hitches a ride with a semi driver who manages to get her away from the scene of the crime and encourages her to call her mother. She calls her mother and returns home, bringing with her a lifetime of guilt and nightmares. Skip forward twenty-five years. Nora is now happily married so the thinks to a man named Ken and she has two teen-aged children, Drew and Chloe.

She has married into old money and works on the family-owned newspaper in New England. From the outside, everyone is happy and the family looks perfect but, as Nora believes, "Happiness so often trails a long shadow". She soon finds out that Ken has been having a 'relationship' for the past four years with one of her best friends.

Nora's world is shattered. Her family is torn apart and in the process other, and often darker, secrets come to light. Behind the simplest reality, betrayal. Sojourn House has received national attention and Nora is being photographed by Newsweek magazine for her work there. Eddie Hawkins, sociopathic and narcissistic, sees Nora's picture in the magazine and recognizes her from their week together twenty-five years earlier.

He travels across the country to Nora's hometown and sets himself up there in a cheap hotel. He contacts Nora who does not know what he wants but she has a stomach-turning, gut-wrenching uneasiness about seeing him. Her gut reaction is that he has sought her out to blackmail her for the role she had in what she thinks may have been a murder twenty-five years previously. She is a victim of perceived blackmail.

Eddie Hawkins arrives just as her marriage and life are falling apart. Though fragile, angry and unsure on the inside, Nora comes across as independent, strong and almost cold on the outside. This is a common theme in Ms. Morris's books - - the outside harbors the seeds of the inside, and vice verse. As Nora is dealing with one family secret and betrayal after another, the book proceeds to get darker and darker, with a deeply ingenious plot and wonderfully deep and crisp characterizations.

I felt like I could reach out and touch the characters, they came so alive.

Characterization is one of Ms. Morris's greatest gifts and she has many. She examines the inner and outer worlds of her protagonists and leaves no stone left unturned. That, along with a breath holding plot, make this one of the best books I've read this year. I finished the book in two days, hardly coming up for air. My only disappointment was that I didn't want it to end. I wanted to continue to be a fly on the wall watching, and watching, and watching some more.

Oct 14, Nina rated it really liked it Shelves: I think we all have days when we wake up hating the world and wanting everyone in it to be as miserable as we are. For me these days usually coincide with the first two of my period. This book is perfect for those times. Also for right after or before a break-up or when you specifically dislike someone and want them to suffer in fiction. Gorge yourself on schadenfreude! I don't recommend reading the entire book at once or undiluted by other books, as you may end up feeling disgusted w I think we all have days when we wake up hating the world and wanting everyone in it to be as miserable as we are.

I don't recommend reading the entire book at once or undiluted by other books, as you may end up feeling disgusted with yourself. So, the plot is pretty cliche: There's also the "secret from her past" - passages from the point of view of her crazed blackmailer, which I found unreal and boring. The thing that I love about this story is that the protagonist is so unfailingly stupid and whiny that you want bad things to happen to her, which the book certainly delivers. There's a long wind-up to the point where she finds out about the affair, and since the reader already knows what he's going to tell her, this just makes you impatient for the bomb to drop.

I was listening to the audiobook, and found Nora not the reader, just the character so irritating, that when it finally hit her, I was celebrating in a very undignified, unfeminist, "take that bitch! It just goes on like that. She does annoying, stupid things which make you groan with frustration, then celebrate once the excrement hits the ventilator. Great book for the cynics, and for the times when you meet someone stupid, smug, and successful, and wish for a little come-uppance.

Also, the eponymous "Last Secret"? Obvious from the beginning. How long the affair was going on is a huge hint. Jun 18, Donna Girouard rated it did not like it.

The Last Secret by Mary McGarry Morris

Well, by the time the last secret is revealed in The Last Secret, it's really no secret because any reader with half a brain and a little savvy has already figured it out. But that's not the biggest problem for me with this novel. The main reason I rated this book the way I have is because of the ending. Too many people survived and some even to live happily ever after. Honestly, I wanted this novel to end like a Shakespearean tragedy: The story itself really isn't a bad one and the writing is decent , but I stopped caring about the characters about halfway through the book.

Nov 05, Valerie rated it it was ok. I didn't really connect with this book. The main character is, by her own description, cold and bossy, and you never really get to see a soft side that makes you care about her. The premise was interesting - the man from her past arriving when her life is falling apart - but then the story takes an odd turn and the protagonist becomes even less likeable. All the characters left me cold, actually, and the story was pretty depressing. Jun 20, Sa rated it liked it.

I was disappointed with The Last Secret. The story and details seemed contrived. May 20, Jennifer rated it it was ok. Competent but not riveting account of a woman's life falling apart Just okay from a writing standpoint and pretty depressing on top of that. I couldn't put this down. The rich writing and Nora's view of the world captured me when the book opened on her year-old self and never let go.

If you like psychological suspense, I highly recommend it. Oct 04, Patty rated it liked it. I have mixed emotions about The Last Secret, I did enjoy it. I wanted to slap Nora the main character and tell her to wake up, thus the author did a great job of evoking emotion from me at the same time people do behave or think or lack of thinking in similar ways as Nora.

Even after her husbands affair she could not find a way of opening up to herself or others the shame of any secret is not telling this only fueled her illusion of the state of her marriage and the illusion that she was pu I have mixed emotions about The Last Secret, I did enjoy it.

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Even after her husbands affair she could not find a way of opening up to herself or others the shame of any secret is not telling this only fueled her illusion of the state of her marriage and the illusion that she was putting her children first. The author built the character of Eddie the villian in such a way that I looked forward to his twisted monologe and could feel just how creepy he really was.

I am a big fan of Mary McGarry Morris and would highly recommend any of her books, they touch on topics that evoke emotion good or bad, and there are no fairy tale endings Aug 19, Mary Martin rated it liked it. Even her children knew before her! And then her past comes back to haunt her when Eddie Hawkins arrives out of nowhere 26 years later. Of course those two issues come together and bring Nora an incredible amount of grief.

Mildly interesting plot but very predictable. Also very annoying that Nora allows herself to continue to be a victim of her husband. May 28, Ginger rated it really liked it. Mary McGarry Morris is one of my favorite authors. She's not for everyone, her books are very dark and nothing good ever happens in them. But I do enjoy her.

This was not one of my favorites, but still very good. A woman finds out her husband has been having a "relationship" not an affair with a close friend and a psychotic man from her past comes back into her life. Dec 09, Ron Charles rated it really liked it.

The Last Secret

She signals her approach in an explosive preface that takes place more than two decades before the rest of the novel: Seventeen-year-old Nora has run away with a manipulative grad student who wants her to lure men into their car to rob them, but the scam immediately goes bad, and her "The Last Secret" would be another! Seventeen-year-old Nora has run away with a manipulative grad student who wants her to lure men into their car to rob them, but the scam immediately goes bad, and her boyfriend beats their first john to a pulp with a pipe.

When Chapter 1 opens, Nora is a mother of two teens, married to the charming publisher of a New England newspaper.

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A well-known figure in the town's social and charitable circuit marvelously satirized , she's on the board of a Catholic home for battered women. But suddenly her perfect life is rocked by the revelation that for four years, her glad-handing husband has been having an affair -- "a relationship" -- with Nora's best friend. What follows is a painfully insightful depiction of the disorienting effects of such betrayal while husband and wife attempt to preserve the theater of a successful marriage. It's like losing a basic faculty, taste, smell, touch; everything seems unremarkable. It's a bitter critique of the narcissistic confessional culture, with its naive faith in talk therapy and forgiveness.

In a particularly galling scene, Ken tells Nora that "as long as they were being honest about their feelings, then she has to know that her recrimination only wears him down, day after day, grinding away at him. Guilt isn't his strong suit. He resents her distrust. In the middle of this domestic crisis, Nora's murderous old boyfriend tracks her down, and not just to reminisce about good times. He's a truly frightening character, and Morris stirs the terror by doling out only glimpses of his psychotic behavior.

It all leads to a propulsive climax that makes this sensitive work of literary fiction also incredibly exciting. Don't wait for the inevitable movie version because Hollywood will never preserve the ending's unsettling ambiguity. Jun 10, Peggy rated it liked it. I enjoyed reading it, but had a few problems with some of the details. Maybe I didn't pay enough attention or just missed something in the plot.

I read most of the book on Sunday while I was at my volunteer job, so maybe it was too hot to concentrate. The basic plot is that Nora Hammond has an ideal life, or so she thinks. Maybe she just doesn't take enough time to figure out what is going on around her. After all, she has a demanding job, a busy husband, and two active teenagers, a son and a daughter.

Her ordered world begins to fall apart when she finds out that her husband is having an affair with a mutual friend. This is complicated enough, except she has to see this person socially, her son and the lady's son are friends, both her children know this lady, her husband gave the lady's named Robin husband a job, and Nora also works with her own husband and his brother. There are so many complications in this book that you need a road map to figure out the story.