„The Secret“ is a dark domestic drama which handles a lot of difficult issues. At first it seems like a thriller because a young girl is found dead in a small village. One of the main characters is Elise who lives with an abusive husband. In comes Jo, a police detective who is looking not only into the murder but also into a porn ring that operates from this particular village. It is an interesting and entertaining enough story and although it is all very sinister at the same time it is an easy read. There is not too much depth and I failed to connect to any of the characters because they are either uninteresting of unlikable. I feel I should have felt for Elise but I think she was just not likeable enough. I often have no patience for teenagers in books and here it is the same. It felt that stubborn Niamh just fed enough information at a time to keep the story afloat. If she would have told everything she knew immediately the book would have been a short story. So the author decided to make her shy and secretive. Her behavior really felt like it was written just for the purpose to make that book long enough and keep you guessing. And it worked. I did not predict the ending but it just did not captivate me.

As I said it is an easy read but it is not a very remarkable one. This is my fourth book from this author and overall I enjoyed them all. But I enjoyed this one the least.

NB. The version of this I read was called The Stepdaughter. It's the fourth book I’ve read by Debbie Howells.

I very much enjoyed Howells’ first psychological thriller, The Bones of You, in particular.

Her latest is another complex story of relationships and of secrets and lies. I should also mention that it features domestic violence and references to child pornography (though no details etc).

This book unfolds from the points of view of Elise, a flight attendant; her daughter Niamh; and (later) Nicki, a detective sergeant investigating Hollie’s death. I liked that Elise and Niamh’s thoughts crossed over in time a little so you got different perspectives of the same event or discussion and I think this is one of the book’s strengths.

Howells also cleverly unpicks Elise’s marital issues. We know there’s infidelity as Elise tells us that off the bat but I felt initially she was unfairly antagonistic towards her husband Andrew and very petty. I didn’t understand why she stayed in the relationship. She talks about wanting to keep things normal for Niamh, but it seems like a really toxic environment for them all. Things change however and we learn we’ve only seen one side of Andrew and their marriage. That being said, I wasn’t sure the behaviour of the couple (and Elise’s thoughts to which we’re privy) were entirely consistent throughout the novel.

We meet Hollie before her unfortunate demise and she’s obviously very troubled, though – like those around her – we’re unsure if she’s being overly-dramatic.

Howells offers a number of potential plot-lines and suspects here so we’re kept guessing.

There’s reference to someone called Dylan – which I must admit I found distracting as he was mentioned before any context was provided. And then of course there’s Andrew’s infidelity, his treatment of Elise, Hollie’s father’s financial woes and dodgy investments.

Howells paces this really well and keeps the surprises coming and adds in a few final twists. Both mother and daughter are keeping secrets from us throughout most of the novel. Niamh is obvious about it but Elise less-so. And of course we’re unsure if those secrets play a role in Hollie’s death and all that came before it.

I was perhaps a little confused about some of the backstories, including that of Hollie’s mother (as opposed to her step-mother). Some of the timing didn’t seem to fit. It’s also highly likely I missed something about Andrew’s history and the couple’s decision to move to Abingworth in the first place.

In some ways we’re forced to consider who we trust and why here, and wonder if the people we assume to be ‘good’ are actually ‘bad’? Or at least, not innocent.

3.5 stars

Oh my goodness what a roller coaster of a ride - I know this is used commonly but this is brilliant. I hadn't read anything before by this author but she got coercive control done to a T. I thought I knew where this was going but I didn't.

This was definitely a one session read; so much that I hushed my husband as I was nearing the end.

Please read this book it will be worth it.

I was given an advance copy by netgalley and the publishers but the review is entirely my own.

The village of Abingworth is a rather exclusive area to live, with large houses placed in countryside gardens with wooded areas and plenty of privacy. This is a village where the residents don’t have a huge sense of community or honest, real friendships. This is one of those areas where keeping up appearances is everything and for those with a social standing, it’s most important of all. Of course there’s so much more going on than anyone would admit too. Troubled teen Hollie has gone missing. Just beforehand, she briefly visits her friend Niamh and tells her a secret. One she swears to keep safe. However, as detectives arrive and start to ask difficult questions, can Niamh tell the secret to help find her friend? Or is it something so terrible that only by keeping quiet, can she keep her friend and herself safe?

This was an entertaining domestic thriller with some fairly dark themes too. The story is told through two narrators, Elise who is Niamh’s mum and Jo who is the detective on the missing person’s case. Elise is a flight attendant, working unusual hours on
mainly short haul flights. In the first few pages as Elise drives a short distance home from the airport she has a lot on her mind. She is quite matter of fact in about Andrew’s serial infidelity and muses on who it could be this time. Early on, the author takes us on a night out with Elise and Andrew, who is the local GP. This is not so much a relaxed evening out, as it is a show. They must present their most united front in the local, so that everyone they meet must be sure of their relationship and their respectability. The truth is much different.

This book brilliantly portrays coercion and how domestic abuse develops, slow and insidious, until you almost don’t recognise yourself. There are plenty of twists and turns here that keep you guessing, but one revelation jarred a bit and it felt weird that it hadn’t been mentioned sooner. It turns out that this picturesque village has some terrible secrets, all centring on a mansion where Hollie liked to trespass and explore. Elise wants to find out what happened to her, but also protect her daughter Niamh - the last person to talk to Hollie. Does she know more than she’s letting on? I was hooked till the end, as I usually am with this author. I hate false situations where people are putting on a front constantly, the question here is are they doing this to fit in or do they have something to hide? This is another entertaining thriller from this author and will keep you guessing.

Wow! This thriller really caught me and now I feel like I need a few moments to process!
The speed, the tension, the intricately woven plot, the fallibility of the characters made me bite my lip as I raced through it! Each character so well brought to life, so unique, vulnerabilities clearly demonstrated!
Secrets abound in this closed community! The twists and turns and developments are brilliant! How an author plots all of that amazes me! Trigger warnings for strongly coercive characters and domestic violence though.
It is difficult to write a detailed review without giving spoilers, which I won’t do, if you like psychological thrillers, tense and pacy then read this! I LOVED IT!!

I was looking forward to reading The Secret. The novel is set in the small village of Abingworth wheee it seems everyone in the village has a secret. In particular behind the doors of the Buckley residence. Niamh Buckley is best friends with Hollie. Hollie tells Niamh about a devastating discovery, swears her to secrecy and then disappears. All the villagers claim to know nothing until her body is found. This book was billed as completely unputdownable suspense, however I found the majority of the book too slow placed. The twist at the end redeemed the book for me so I’ve increased my rating to 3.5 stars. Thank you to NetGalley, Avon Books UK and the author for the chance to review.

“Only ten percent of people are good.”

Elise Buckley is a flight attendant, and as this book opens, she is watching a woman on her flight reading a magazine with this headline. Ten percent doesn’t sound like good odds - that would mean there are only about a dozen “good” people on her plane. Really though, this statistic shouldn’t have surprised her, as Elise knows all too well how many bad people there are in the world.

Elise and her husband, Andrew, seem like the perfect power couple. He’s a lead doctor in their small English village, and Elise is always jetting around Europe for her job. As every thriller reader knows though, those “perfect couples” are usually the ones who are worst off. That’s kind of a guide for real life as well, but yes - they are far from a perfect couple, whatever that may be.

Their daughter, Niamh, is a moody teenager, as is her best friend, Hollie. Elise feels distant from her husband, but she knows why that is. What she doesn’t know is why she also feels a distance from her daughter. She doesn’t realize that Hollie has shared a dark secret with Niamh, and now the young girls are dealing with very adult things all on their own.

Soon after Hollie’s secret is revealed, she goes missing. Her father and stepmother are hysterical with grief when her body is found, and the police go from looking for a girl who’s prone to running away, to trying to find out who killed her. As their investigation goes forward, village secrets start coming out, people start clamming up, and families start falling apart.

This book started good, kept getting better as it went along, and had a great ending. At one point, almost everyone in the book seemed to have a secret that could have theoretically led them to murdering Hollie. I guessed the killer, but only because I was suspicious of everyone - the author makes sure you are nice and twisted up before dropping that bomb. I liked this quick and enjoyable read; it was quite the mystery with a lot of different facets. 3.5 stars.

(Thank you to Avon Books UK, Debbie Howells, and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my review.)

Wow! What an absolute corker of a book! More twists than your local theme park rollercoaster and some absolutely horrid characters who make for a great read. Families, close-knit villagers who close ranks when push comes to shove, dubious financial transactions and secrets between friends, not to mention an occasional lie to distract from what goes on behind closed doors. All of this and so very much more kept me turning the pages in Debbie Howells' latest gripping tale so fast that I had whipped through it in under 24 hours. And that is a rarity for me!
Niamh and Hollie are the only 2 teenagers in the village of Abingworth and as such stand out among the residents. They live in each other's pockets, telling each other everything. Yet when Hollie goes missing, Niamh seems to be in the dark as much as anyone as to what could have happened to Hollie.
The ensuing police investigation uncovers far more than just what happened in Hollie's last hours and involves more of the village's residents than anyone would have expected when that first missing person report came in.
This is definitely a book which you need to put aside a few hours for; get some snacks in, turn off your phone and keep the coffee pot brewed because you won't want to put it down once you get started.
I'm not saying any more than that because the reveals need to happen entirely as the author intended so no hints let alone spoilers in my review. The only thing I will say is BUY IT!! You will NOT regret it.
Huge thanks for the opportunity to read a prepublication copy of this book via NetGalley.

The Secret is a tense psychological thriller that kept me reading late into the night.

In the village of Abingworth, everyone has a secret to hide.

Best friends Niamh and Hollie are the only two teenagers in this small community. They tell each other everything. One day, Hollie shares the secret of all secrets with Niamh and makes her promise not to tell anyone, no matter what.

Not long after this, Hollie goes missing, and her body turns up days later.

When Detective Sergeant May gets assigned with solving this case, she quickly learns that this village is full of people who don’t say much but are quick to point fingers at one another.

This psychological thriller is slowly paced and intricately plotted and has multiple POVs. The chapters are fairly short and had me eagerly turning the pages. It deals with some dark themes, so it won’t be one that everyone can digest.

I think the author accurately shows how debilitating emotional and physical abuse can be.

I recommend this to those prepared for a psychological thriller that takes it time examining dark subject matter.

CW: emotional and physical abuse/violence, child exploitation (non-descriptive).

Thank you to Avon for the arc provided via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

https://booksandwheels.com

“But none of us knows what lies behind appearances, or what we’re capable of in extreme circumstances.”

Teenagers Dylan and Hollie were in love…everyone in the village could see how perfectly suited they were for each other…until one day, they were not…

In the small village of Abingworth, residents are hiding secrets behind their closed doors. When Hollie tells her friend Niamh hers, it has deadly consequences. Hollie vanishes and once the police begin knocking on doors, they slowly put the puzzle pieces together that the villagers are hiding something. When Hollie’s body is discovered, the search then turns to who murdered the teen and why? Could it be the neighbor who is suspected of distributing child pornography? Perhaps the womanizing local doctor who abuses and controls his wife? The abused wife? Or could it be any one of the villagers hiding behind their mask of normalcy? The list of suspects grows as the secrets become told…one by one…

If edgy psychological thrillers are your cup of tea, then put on the kettle and dive in! Deep, dark and depressing with a twisted ending that will cause you to question if some secrets are better left just that…a secret…




**I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book that I received via NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own. **

*There are TWs for this book so make sure to look them up before reading*

Wow! This book was so gripping and had so many twists and cliff-hangers that you just wanted to keep reading it! I have found that I love reading books that are set in small villages because you know that people have secrets that they aren’t sharing with others! Howells did such a good job keeping you on your toes throughout the book! When I thought I had it figured out, she would add another twist in there. I also think that she did a good job handing sensitive topics including child pornography and domestic violence. I also love reading books from multiple POVs (which this was) because you can glean so much from the different characters and their thoughts. Overall, I loved this book and I would definitely recommend it!

This review will be posted to my Instagram blog (read_betweenthecovers) in the near future!

back to the back, this is fantastic!, it has so many aspects and subplot’s which all increased the character and plot development.

There were so many different sides to the characters (Andrew 😡) it was so interesting following Jo and the team to find out what had happening.

A fast paced, twister of a thriller which is a must read!

I loved this book, but I knew I would as I've sped through the author's previous books.

The story centres around Elise, her very damaged relationship with her husband Andrew, their troubled teenage daughter Niamh and her close friend, Hollie. When Hollie suddenly disappears after having confided a dark secret to Niamh, this sets the wheels in motion for a multitude of secrets, lies and some extremely shady behaviour to be unearthed.

I was gripped by the clever and constantly evolving plot, and each of the characters, even though some were obviously extremely unlikable! The village setting is well portrayed and shows no matter how well you think you might know your neighbours, nobody ever truly knows what goes on behind closed doors. There are strong themes of domestic abuse, coercive control and pornography, all of which are skillfully and sensitively written.

It's the kind of book where you think you've started to figure out what's happening, until another twist completely proved me wrong!

This is a real page turner and only reinforces my view of how engrossing the author's books are. I highly recommend it to everyone who enjoys gripping well written psychological thrillers.

Thanks to the author, Debbie Howells, publishers Avon Books UK and Net Galley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The secret is a story of village life and how is can hide many secrets. Elise and Andrew moved to Abingworth to make a fresh start after his affair but sadly it does not go as planned.

Told from multiple perspectives this psychological thriller is quite a slow burner. It deals well with the themes of domestic abuse and child abuse.

I didn’t feel like you go the usual twists and turns of a psychological thriller, the ones there were I was expecting. That said it was a great story and characterisation.

Definitely worth reading.

I thought this book sounded interesting, and I was looking forward to reading it .However I found the pace of the book to be too slow for me, and the characters were rather dull, and not very likable. I am sorry to say it didn't grab me or hold my interest. Not my best read,.

This thriller had many threads running throughout the story and this can either go really well or crash and burn. In The Secret - it totally worked! I enjoyed this and once I got past the slow start, I couldn't put it down.

The "twist" was fairly easy to spot coming, but still added a great element to the overall finish and I enjoyed this.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC.

I found this book a gripping fast paced domestic thriller. When many people in a village have secrets, how do you know who to trust. The story is told from the perspective of Elise, Niamh and Jo. Elise is married to Dr Andrew Buckley, Niamh is their daughter whose friend Hollie has gone missing. Before she went missing Hollie told Niamh a shocking secret, Jo is the detective assigned to the case
There are many aspects of this book which may cause upset to readers, trigger points being coercive control and domestic and physical abuse, child pornography but it's written very empatheticly.
This is my first read by Debbie but I like her style of writing, I certainly didn't see the ending coming.
Many thanks to Netgalley and Harper Collins for the opportunity to read the advanced copy, I am under no obligation to provide a review

I really enjoyed this, yes there was some very hard parts to read. Lots of trigger warnings involved.
It was very detailed and the story line was very good. Some characters I loved and obviously some I despised. Which in my opinion makes this a fantastic book and a good author.
Really enjoyed the twists that were in this book.
Brilliant read.

i so love this authors books . always addictive how well do we know our neighbour s . Elise is married to Andrew she is an air hostess her husband a doctor they have a daughter Niamh they live in a village where everyone knows everyone but each neighbour has secrets Niamh friend Hollie is very troubled and scared . but Elise hides from everyone how cruel her husband is but one night Hollie does not come home and the police are called it is so good will have you gripped to the last chapter

This was a twisty thriller with several threads running through it which kept you wondering how they all tied together right up until the end. This is one of those reads that gets increasingly engrossing the further into the story you get and the complexity of the characters just grows. Told from the viewpoints of mother, daughter and detective it’s a tale of friendship, secrets and a close yet distant village community with a dark undercurrent running through it. Niamh, the daughter, was a very surprising character, very perspicacious but playing her cards very closely to her chest. Overall this is quite a dark but intriguing read.