Secrets

After reading my second Lesley Pearse book now, Secrets, I find it hard to love any other author quite as much. Pearse is a very talented writer, and sure knows how to put a beautiful story together. In this book, it begins with the story of Adele as a youngster, and her little sister Pamela getting killed in a hit-and-run accident. Adele is overcome with shock, and fears for her life, because her mother hates her, and loves Pamela. Her mother's wrath will be horrible, and Adele knows she'll be even more hated now than already. And sure enough, this is what happens. Her mother tries to kill Adele, and lives in a drunken stupor. Later Adele gets sent away to an orphanage where she is sexually abused by Mr. Makepeace, the male owner of the group home. Fearing for her life once again, she runs away to her grandmother's home, knowing where she lives, but has a long way to travel there on foot. By the time she reaches Honor, her cantankerous grandma's house, she is very very ill, and collapses on the front porch when she gets there. Her granmother, not happy at all about meeting her granddaughter, begrudgingly nurses her back to health. It is at some point though, that the old lady's heart gives in, and the two become very close. Honor adopts Adele, taking her into her legal guardianship, severing all ties with her mother who is in a mental hospital. The story moves on, Adele grows up, and becomes a nurse, working very hard. She meets her first love, but then there is the impending war, so he is sent away. At some point, her mother returns, and then the whole plot of the story changes, as seeking forgiveness isn't easy, and there are more terrible secrets in the past that will shock everyone with the return of Rose in the picture.