A Secret in the Family by Nancy Revell
Sunderland, 1945. Ida Boulter makes the heart-wrenching decision to leave her five children behind as she escapes her husband and moves to London to start afresh with the love of her life.
1953, County Durham. Ida’s children have since built a new life in the beautiful home of Cuthford Manor – looked after by their eldest sibling Angie and her husband.
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But their world is about to be rocked once again when their mother turns up out of the blue for the first time in eight years.
She has come back bearing a secret she can no longer keep from her family.
My Review
I really enjoyed reading A Secret In The Family even though it’s not my usual time period. If I’m reading historical fiction it will either be Victorian Britain or World War Two. This book is set around the time I was born, in a part of the country I don’t know at all. Living in the middle class Cotswolds, I have no point of reference, but that was fine by me.
It mainly revolves around Angie, and her ‘mam’ Ida, who walked out on the family to live with the love of her life, Carl, in London. Angie is left to look after her four younger siblings, the littlest one being only two years old. To make matters worse, it’s the night before Angie’s wedding when Ida disappears.
Eight years later, Ida returns, bearing a terrible secret that she must reveal as soon as possible. Her reappearance throws everyone into confusion. And while Angie is ready to hear her mother out, the two older children Danny and Marlene are not so forgiving. The younger two, who don’t remember her anyway and have always seen Angie as their ‘mam’, take to her immediately, as does Angie’s seven-year-old daughter Bonnie.
It’s a really engaging, well-told story, with some likeable characters, particularly Angie and Marlene. It’s mostly set at Cuthford Manor, a beautiful manor house left to Angie by her late well-to-do husband, and now run as a country house hotel, with a riding school. We also flip back and forth to Ida’s childhood, and to London at one point. I admit I cried a fair bit towards the end.
Take it on holiday so you can read uninterrupted. I feel sure you’ll enjoy it as much as I did.
Many thanks to @annecater for inviting me to be part of #RandomThingsTours
About the Author
Nancy Revell is the author of twelve titles in the bestselling Shipyard Girls series – which tells the story of a group of women who work together in a Sunderland ship yard during the Second World War. This new novel features some of the characters from the world of the Shipyard Girls series in a new County Durham setting. Her books have sold more than half a million copies across all editions.
Before that she was a journalist who worked for all the national newspapers, providing them with hard-hitting news stories and in-depth features. She also wrote amazing and inspirational true life stories for just about every woman’s magazine in the country.
Nancy was born and brought up in the North East of England and she now lives in Oxfordshire with her husband, Paul.
