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Foster sisters Krystal and Nichole have been there for each other through everything since they were placed in the same home when they were 7. They didn’t have a warm and welcoming foster family, so each was all the other had for years. But as adults they now have satisfying lives: Nichole has had a fairy-tale happy marriage for a decade and teaches high school students; Krystal is a family-law attorney.
When Krystal hears Nichole has just been committed to a psychiatric hospital after trying to kill her husband in a fire in their home, she drops everything to find out what’s going on and to protect her. Nichole is in bad shape: She is violent, hurting the hospital workers and herself, and raving that her husband isn’t really her husband. Krystal is worried about Nichole’s mental state and desperately wants her to get the right treatment so she can return to normal, but she’s just as worried about her being sent to prison for an attempted murder that simply makes no sense.
Krystal visits Nichole regularly, advocating for proper care for her and trying to carefully ask questions. She also has to navigate the criminal investigation: questions from the police detective, from the psychiatrist, from the lawyer she procures for her sister. Krystal is mostly forthright, but she has to omit the truth about one difficult event they experienced together as teens. She feels it’s the only way to protect Nichole. But it may be that long-ago tragedy can’t be avoided any longer.
The Secrets of Us is a gripping story that reveals bits of the truth in the present and from the past in alternating points of view. It’s a mystery, it’s a thriller, it’s a story of a broken mind. Lucinda Berry’s professional experience as a clinical psychologist and researcher of childhood trauma shows. I just gobbled up the story in one satisfying sitting.
Rated: Moderate. There are fewer than 10 instances of moderate profanity, a few uses of mild language, and about 15 uses of the name of Deity in vain. Sexual content includes references to one person’s infidelity, a character talking about making out and wanting to go to “third base.” Violence includes a stabbing murder and references to blood being on a person and on things; an attempted murder by fire, with a character left with burn injuries; a death where a person falls and blood spreads around and there are some seizures, and regular serious bullying. A character hurts herself while in bad shape mentally. There are numerous scenes in a mental hospital with one character acting violent repeatedly and then zoned out because of medications.
*I received an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.
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