This book is a must read. 3 friends are all going through something different in their lives. A brain tumor, a n affair with a married man and a husband that wants to be female.
The story is well! Written and once you start you will not want to put it down.
I was a little sad that not all of them got their happy ending.

Thank you Harlequin and Netgalley for allowing me to read this book for an honest review

I received an arc of this title from NetGalley for an honest review. Good characters, excellent plot and a quick read. Perfect as a light summer read.

A lovely read. An enjoyable escape. I liked the characters and the plot was believable. Will read this author again. Recommended.

3.5 stars

I enjoy books featuring women as friends rather than as competitors, and one thing Rachel Johns gets right with The Art of Keeping Secrets is the friendship dynamic between her three characters. 

Do they always like each other? No.

Do they always enjoy each other's company? No.

But they share an inherent sense of support of each other. Even when they are at odds, they are on each other's sides. 

Of the three women, Flick perhaps is the star of the show. She's a taxidermist, so her job is to bring life to dead things. This is more than just a little symbolic. Flick's marriage to Sebastian is deemed as the standard for marriages, but Flick knows otherwise. There is more to this relationship than her friends realize, more than even she realizes. 

Neve, a single parent, also conceals a secret. She has not been truthful with her son, who believes that his father has rejected him. The truth is, like Flick's marriage, more complex than that. Emma is also a single parent, but hers is more recent. She is divorced, her husband having remarried a younger woman (named Chanel, which made me laugh for some reason). Emma currently struggles with some health problems and a raging crush on her boss. 

These three have known each other for years. They met when their sons were younger, coming together as a unit to operate against the other mothers. Johns also has a strong sense of how women work against each other, as evidenced by the contrast with the school moms. 

If you're looking for a traditional romance, this perhaps is not the right book. Yes, there are hints of it, as far as girl-meets-boy. But the bigger, more significant romance is the one between the three women. They love each other, even if that love is nonsexual. Their love for each other is, in many ways, stronger than the love they may have for the men in their lives. 

The pacing is a bit uneven in this book, and I had a difficult time warming up to Flick. I'm not sure I ever did. I felt for her, but I never quite liked her. There were times when I wondered if I could be friends with her, whereas I knew that Neve, Emma, and I could be.

Rachel Johns knows that not every story will have a happy ending, and such is the case for at least one of these women. I liked that realism, though. I liked that Johns took a risk and told an honest story, as opposed to something unrealistically feel-good.

Review featured at www.books-n-kisses.com

This story is about friendship and secrets. Have you ever had a friend that you believe you know every little detail about. If you were to take a quiz on their life you would get 100% and even have stories for extra credit. Well what if you found out that your friend was keeping a big secret you never expected AND you now come to realize you have a secret that she doesn’t know about and it’s time to confess.

Well that is what this story is about. Three friends who believe they know each other inside and out but are shocked to learn they don’t.

I enjoyed each story. Told by each of the friends the book jumps to each character and at first I wasn’t sure if I would like it having the writing this way really added to the characters. I enjoyed the writing and the characters both forefront and background.

This is women’s lit at its finest.

Disclaimer:
I received a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Great read! An excellent delve into the relationship of three friends and how twists and turns change their lives. I didn’t like the ending, I wanted to find out more of how things worked out, but overall I was really invested in each of their lives and kept turning page after page to see what was going to happen next. Strong characters, three meaningful plots that meld together through their friendship and show us what true friends should be!

Three of the more unconventional moms forge a friendship when their sons begin high school at an elite private school. Throughout their time there, they share the ups and downs of life and motherhood, their children form friendships together, and they’re like family to each other. Now it’s almost time for the boys to graduate and times are changing.

Genevieve Taylor (Neve) has been a single parent for her son Will’s whole life, but life is going to change when she’s forced to reveal a secret past that she hadn’t shared with anyone previously. Her friends accompany her on a trip to New York to be supportive while she tries to get some answers and rectify some mistakes.

Emma McLoughlin has been trying her best to survive after an unexpected divorce a few years ago, but she’s to the point of falling apart exhausted. Her son Caleb and younger twin daughters are the light of her life, but having to deal with her ex is nothing she looks forward to. To top it all off, she’s inappropriately crushing on her boss!

Felicity Bell (Flick) has the perfect life … or so it seems … a darling son Toby who is ready to graduate and prosper in life, a daughter ready to start a new chapter in her life and a devoted husband. What nobody knows are the secrets that are hidden behind the walls of their house … secrets that are going to be exposed that will devastate each of their lives.

DNF. Sadly not for me this one and is no reflection on the author, it's simply a case of it's-not-you-it's-me.

Three women, three big secrets (ok, maybe two big secrets and one thing where no one realized what was happening). Emma, Flick and Neve live in Australia and send their sons to the same private school. They've never fit in with the other moms, but they have become the best of friends. Now their sons are graduating and each is finding that life as she knows it will be undergoing more changes than the predicted empty nest.

The biggest secret of all is Flick's, well, actually her husband's. She learned while they were engaged that he was a cross-dresser, but they agreed it would be their secret. Now, he has come out to her as transgendered but he (she?) doesn't want to lose Flick. Flick is torn--she's not a lesbian, she loves her husband, but she doesn't want a wife. What will she do?

None of these women have the traditional picket fence marriage--at the time of this story, Flick is the only one who is married--and the story is an interesting exploration of what marriage is and should be.

I enjoyed the book but I can't say that any of the women particularly appealed to me--I felt sorry for all of them at different times in the book, but I was always the dispassionate observer, I was never emotionally drawn into the book.

I'd like to thank the publisher for making a review copy available via NetGalley. Grade: B.