Readers who love Susan Wiggs and Susan Mallery will adore New York Times bestselling author Mary McNear newest novel. A young woman travels home to Butternut Lake, confronting her past and the tragedy she and her friends have silently carried with them for over a decade while also facing an unknown future.Butternut Lake is an idyllic place—but for one woman, her return to the lake town she once … the lake town she once called home is bittersweet…
Sometimes life changes in an instant.
Quinn LaPointe grew up on beautiful Butternut Lake, safe, secure, sure of her future. But after a high school tragedy, she left for college and never looked back. Becoming a successful writer in Chicago, she worked to keep out the dark memories of an accident that upended her life. But now, after ten years, she’s finally returned home.
Butternut is the same, and yet everything is changed. Gabriel Shipp, once her very best friend, doesn’t want anything to do with her. The charming guy she remembers is now brooding and withdrawn. Tanner Lightman, the seductive brother of her late boyfriend, wants her to stick around. Annika Bergstrom, an old classmate who once hated Quinn, is now friendly. Everyone, it seems, has a secret.
Determined to come to terms with the tragedy and rebuild old relationships, Quinn settles into Loon Bay Cabins, a rustic but cozy lakeside resort, where she begins writing down her memories of the year before the accident. Her journey though the past leads her to some surprising discoveries about the present. As secrets are revealed and a new love emerges, Quinn finds that understanding the past is the key to the future.
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Mary McNear writes with emotion and compassion.
A heartfelt story of love and loss, family and friendships. A engaging novel with a wonderful cast of characters, and an uplifting conclusion. This latest installment in Mary McNear’s heartwarming Butternut Lake series is an endearing novel, this one like the others did not disappoint!
Mary McNear’s THE SECRETS WE CARRIED is a novel that deals with loss, love, family, secrets, discoveries and healing. A terrible tragedy occurs many years ago when Quinn LaPointe was a senior in high school, and now she returns to her home and beloved Butternut Lake to face what she should have so long ago. After the accident, she left for college and never looked back. Guilt consumed her all these years, but now it’s time to return and face the darkness. She was a budding journalist who worked for her high school newspaper and now, ten years later, she’s an accomplished writer. Writing all the memories she has of that tragic night helps her heal, and McNear alternates between the past and the present.
Quinn is determined to seek out old relationships to begin the healing process. One of those relationships is her very best friend, Gabriel, who means more to her now than she could have possibly known back then. However, Gabriel isn’t as receptive to her as she thought he would be which hurts her to the core. “Since she returned to Butternut she’d foster a belief that seeing Gabriel was important to understanding her past.” More key characters are Jake Lightman, her late high school boyfriend, his brother, Tanner, and Annika Bergstrom, an old classmate who disliked Quinn. Quinn soon learns that all these characters are consumed with the same guilt she harbors, and once she begins to write her memories, her journey from the past helps to unfold secrets, new discoveries and new love.
I won this book from Goodreads, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was fast-reading and held my interest. The ending was tied up very nicely, and I was happy with the way it was done. What resonates with me is being able to go back to your roots, your childhood home and the memories held there, which I recently did. The new owners of my childhood home invited me into their home, and it helped me in so many ways. This is why I liked this book so much. I also decided to pass it on to another reader who said it was on her TBR list. I highly recommend this book. Thank you to Mary McNear and thank you to Goodreads!
Enjoyed reading, interesting the damage secrets caused in this group of friends.
Favorite Quotes:
Northern Superior High School had been built in 1930, when Americans still had a reverence for public education, and the two-story brick building, with a white stone arch over the entranceway and two white stone columns flanking it, spoke to the seriousness of the work to be done inside.
Her closest girlfriend, Katrina, referred to these relationships as Quinn’s “eleventh-month specials.” This wasn’t intentional on Quinn’s part. It wasn’t as if she kept an eye on the calendar as the anniversary of their first date approached. It was more like an inner mechanism of hers sensed a shifting of the light, a changing of the seasons. Either way, she was apt to end things before the earth had made a full rotation around the sun.
My Review:
This is one of those books that is hard to put down as I sense something important to the plot is coming that I really need to know and it is right around the corner, and it was true, but there are several more somethings, and then a few more I wasn’t expecting. I went at this book like an alcoholic on a binge as I couldn’t find a stopping place, nor would I have been willing to stop had I found one. Ms. McNear’s compelling characters and insightful and emotive writing held me on in place and while it wasn’t a thriller or a suspenseful read, my curiosity was tripped while my heart was being mercilessly squeezed. This was the second well-textured and maddeningly paced book of Ms. McNear’s that I have devoured – and in much the same manner. I am greedy for all her words as this talented scribe has strong word voodoo.