“The Secrets We Keep” by Nikki Lee Taylor was a heart-wrenching story about how secrets can destroy!

Sophie has been self-isolating in her house for the past five year’s morning the loss of her husband James and her son Josh. The few pleasures she embraces is her rescue dog Miss Molly, her at-home editing job and her handsome and caring boss, Bastian. The attraction she feels towards Bastian is mutual and satisfying, and even though he is married, she feels safe knowing he is there.

Blogger, Madelyn-May has the perfect life with a successful husband, perfect twins and thousands of followers. Her life wasn’t always perfect though – far from it. And, now someone is sending her taunting emails. The senders name is unfamiliar and the emails have a sinister feel to them concerning her past. She needs to find out who it is before her life comes crashing down and destroys everything she has worked so hard to create. You see, Madelyn-May has several secrets about her past and the last person she wants to know is her husband. Oh, and then there’s her followers, too!

These two women are connected by an agreement made in the past. Secrets kept from those they love because of immediate personal needs at the time. For one woman the secret is kept by deep, devoted love, for the other woman it is kept out of deception and intentional greed.

I enjoyed how the author wove the paths of these two women together, merging what felt like completely separate stories into a common end. Sophie and Madelyn-May were fully and thoroughly developed characters and this gave substance to the foundation of the story.

What seems to be missing is the development of other characters mentioned in this book. I wanted more depth built-in by the author about Sophie’s husband & son and Madelyn-Mays mother & sisters. What was offered was superficial and now I have questions about them that can’t be answered. I also question the necessity of the topic of the specific child abuse in this book. It just didn’t seem necessary to the story-line!

Trigger Warning: Child abuse; Sexual abuse

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Thank you to NetGalley for an free copy of this book. This is my honest review.

Thanks NetGalley, BooksGoSocial and Nikki Lee Taylor for a copy to review.
A heart breaking intense story about motherhood, loss, grief, love, sacrifices, hope and second chances.
This is not a book you easily read or forget about, it's incredibly hard sometimes to go through some parts of it...the unimaginable pain of Sophie's loss and her crippling grief...the unthinkable horrors the sisters endured in that trailer not only by their criminal of a father but mostly by their indifferent mother who allowed it all.
I loved the writing style, the originality of the storyline and the characters building, I mean there wasn't stereotyping regarding the cheating husband, the evil mistress and the wife who must deserve it all..no, the characters came out as human as possible with their weaknesses, flaws, instincts and natural behavior.
The book didn't fall into a very clichéd ending that would have been easily acceptable considering how the seemingly unconnected characters paths crossed gravely.
The book's ending gives the reader couple of lines to think about, imagining how the characters will go on, is it really how their stories end?

I was unable to download this to my kindle. I will not be able to leave a rating. I was really looking forward to reading this book as well!