Fans of The Help and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil will delight in this comic novel of family secrets by acclaimed author, Susan Gabriel (The Secret Sense of Wildflower, a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2012 and an Amazon #1 Bestseller).
In Savannah, Georgia, one woman holds all the secrets. When she dies of a possible voodoo curse, the secrets start coming out. The ghosts are upset. And … The ghosts are upset. And for the Temple family women, everything is about to change forever.
Aristocratic, 80-year-old Iris Temple has a fondness for exotic meats and her poison-pen Book of Secrets keeps her family and all of Savannah’s elites in line. Shortly after Iris dies, compromising tidbits from the Book of Secrets are mysteriously published in the newspaper and the quiet lives of the Temple family women explode.
Iris’s estranged daughter, Rose, escaped to Wyoming 20 years ago and married a cowboy. Will she accept the outrageous terms of the will?
Queenie, Iris’s black half-sister, lives in the historic family mansion, suffering Iris’s arrogant ways as her personal assistant. After all she’s tolerated with Iris, will she inherit the mansion, as promised?
100-year-old Old Sally, who keeps the old Gullah traditions alive, is Queenie’s mother by her white employer, Iris’s father. For Rose, she is the mother Iris could never be. Did Old Sally put a voodoo curse on Iris?
When they discover who will inherit the historic family mansion and Iris’s multi-million- dollar estate, the whole boisterous business of secrets forces the women into challenging – and sometimes hilarious – situations as they put the past to rest and forge a brighter future.
Temple Secrets is Southern gothic fiction at its best. If you like strong women, plots full of twists and turns, characters who are funny and unpredictable, and sibling rivalry of biblical proportions, you’ll love Susan Gabriel’s rollicking tale of the cost of keeping secrets, the healing that comes with their exposure and the bliss of coming home again.
Buy Temple Secrets and start unlocking the mysteries today!
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I’m going to try to come near stringing the adequate words together that describe how much I loved this book. I’ll cut to the chase and say it was so good, I didn’t want it to end. Temple Secrets is the kind of well crafted book that, once closed, causes you to wonder what to do next with your life. Author Susan Gabriel created a story chock-full of Southern characters and never once condescended to anything campy, rather, she infused every character with soul as they walked the wire of a story so unique as to be plausible, of character nuance so defined, you understood the underlying motivation behind every thought and deed in this electrifyingly unusual gem of common history experienced individually by players so intertwined, their lives are domino effects wrought from the hands of each other. And oh, the tone of this book: it is bluntly in your face without being offensive. Susan Gabriel writes in a direct, brass tacks voice that is howlingly funny, for all its taboo subjects, and I relished every line. The premise of Temple Secrets is this: In blue-blooded, aristocratic Savannah, where the mansions are gothic and imposing as they retain the character of days gone by, supercilious eccentric, Iris Temple, is on her last leg. For decades, she has ruled the roost of everything and everyone around her. She is one of Savannah’s inflexible old guard and proud of it to the point that she wields her power position in society like a sword. Hers is a personality so full of controlling disdain that she is feared not only by her family and staff, but by the denizens of Savannah, whose tether she keeps tight by her family’s book of secrets, which details intimate, damaging facts best not publically revealed. Iris is estranged from her full-grown daughter, looks down on her mulatto half-sister, who lives with her, and is catered to beyond reason by a handful of staff, who prefer not to stir the waters of Iris’ own self-image. It is a dynamic changer, when Iris is incapacitated by a stroke, and suffice it to say the ghosts of her past come out to haunt, literally and figuratively, which wouldn’t happen in most places, but it can and does in Savannah. In chapters detailing the individual character’s connection to Iris, the story morphs into an incestuous web you didn’t see coming. And at the heart of this story is the Temple Book of Secrets; someone has taken it upon themselves to publish part of its content, but the mystery is nobody knows who or why. It’s hard to write more at this point, without needing a spoiler alert, and I don’t want to deprive the reader of the joy to be found in this bounding story, so I will summarize by saying this novel is so engaging, so thrilling and unique that I stand beside many clamoring for a sequel!
The dead tell no tales – or do they? Secrets, lies, spells and spirits abound. This book has it all. Tragedy, blackmail, adultery, intimidation and hatred all take a turn in this book by Susan Gabriel. Yet, it also includes acceptance, love and healing. This book keeps you guessing from page one and has a surprise ending you won’t see coming.
Loved this book from the beginning to the end. Southern gothic novel with a bit of humor and lots of secrets mysteriously being revealed…..looking forward to reading more of Susan Gabriel’s books !
If you liked the book The Help, you will like this book. The time period is more modern time than The Help but about a very wealthy Savannah family that seems stuck in the past. It definitely has the drama yet funny side as well. Was very surprised at how well I liked the book. The descriptions are very detailed and completely draw you in to the family dynamics.
I’m a great fan of Southern fiction and this is one of the best I’ve read. With humor, ghosts and flash backs to the past it chronicles the two years surrounding the death of the matriarch of the wealthy and socially prominate Temple Family in Savannah, GA. It brings to light family secrets as well as secret family members. A book I couldn’t put down until I read the last page. I can’t wait for the sequel.
Magic, the old South and family history , interrelated lives of white landowners and servants who worked for them.
Had some unusual twists for set in the South.
Southern story