On the surface, Meghan has it all: a handsome, successful husband on television, two beautiful children and a third on the way. She attends prenatal yoga classes, and spends time writing a “mommy blog.”

Agatha doesn’t have it so easy. She’s divorced, seeking to keep her new man, Hayden (of the Royal Navy), in her life with an accidental pregnancy she uses as leverage with his family back home. She works in the grocery, lives in a drab home, and wants to be Meg.

The two women have spoken on occasion, and at one point become “friends,” chatting over their yet unborn children and going through baby clothes, a scene which later comes into play when the police wonder at people who might have inserted themselves into Meg’s life in the months leading up to her delivery.

Meg can’t possibly believe Agatha could have anything to do with her missing infant son.

Agatha has been convincing.

*Spoiler alert* I will try to keep to a minimum but cannot review without mentioning reasons I lowered my rating to four instead of five stars.

Overall The Secrets She Keeps is a page-turning read. I foresaw trouble between Meg and Agatha from the beginning, but that’s to be expected given the blurb. Agatha’s fake pregnancy is telegraphed, but so well-written and thorough that I really feared for Meg’s safety. There’s talk of Meg needing a cesarean birth due to prior delivery complications and I waited for Meg to be abducted and Agatha to be performing some do-it-yourself surgery, but this didn’t get that dark.

What did happen, though, reveals a heartbreaking backstory of a woman, Agatha, who feels her life is worthless without being able to have and raise children of her own. She’s suffered, and is unable or unwilling to see the pain she inflicts upon others in her quest for what she desires most.

Kudos to the author for so completely committing to this tragic character.

Meg, on the other hand, is someone with whom I’m less sympathetic. I almost agree with Agatha’s speculation that Meg isn’t grateful for what she has (then again neither is her husband). Both partners have been unfaithful, and it’s in calling into question Meg’s son’s paternity that I feel the author either went too far or not far enough.

Let me explain. Meg had a one night-stand with her husband’s best friend, a man she shares a past with (unbeknownst to her husband). When “Ben” (Meg’s infant) goes missing from the hospital, it seems a foregone conclusion that while Meg is berating her husband for his infidelity, she’ll have to admit her own. Simon (the possible father) is set up as someone demanding, a man who needs to know whether or not the boy is his, and who wants badly to be in his life if so. He seems the perfect suspect, really, but never once is any of this mentioned to the police, not even while Meg fears for her son’s life. The Simon-Meg connection seemed a lot of drama and potential tension for nothing because when it came down to it Simon was like, “Yeah, well, it’s okay. Congrats on the baby that may or may not be mine. Maybe I’ll turn in this DNA swab or maybe I’ll just try and get my girlfriend pregnant instead.”

What the what???

If something’s like this is written into a story it must have purpose other than surface tension. Simon professed love for Meg. Her husband was cheating with their realtor. How on Earth does this end up “happily ever after?”

Grr.

Also, I’m not a fan of appropriated material. In the author’s quest to write a compelling false pregnancy for Agatha he resorted to quite literally mimicking a scene from Gone Girl almost to a T. Agatha has a pregnant friend who she invites over and plies with drinks to make her pee in a broken toilet, for Agatha to then take the pee to her doctor to get a positive pregnancy test. Eh, sorry, that one’s been done before.

For that reason and for the whole thread about Simon, I’m downgrading my rating from five to four stars. Harsh, maybe, because this is certainly five-star prose, but I don’t feel the plot is perfect, and fives are rare from me. Overall, an excellent read. Riveting, and Agatha’s secrets are both shocking and heartbreaking. What drives a woman to steal another woman’s child? You’ll have to read to find out.

*Thank you to Netgalley, the author, and the publisher for providing me with an advance copy of this novel. ( )

The Secrets She Keeps by Michael Robotham is a gut wrenching bang up novel told from the view point of two pregnant women. The suspense builds as each chapter wraps its head around these fully developed women with brave flaws. It is rare to have such an immensely satisfying, cathartic and brilliant ending within this thriller genre. Hats off to this Australian author. ( )

This was extremely good! Michael Robotham knows how to write psychological thrillers! Sure there are plenty of unexpected twists and turns, but what makes this one fantastic is the depth of the story. He takes the reader to such unexpected levels. He makes you feel for every character, regardless of their poor decisions. The ending is a bit of a mind bender and allows for reader interpretation.

Meghan, is a married pregnant mom of two, who appears to have it all. Agatha, is an unmarried pregnant woman working in a grocery store. Agatha sees Meghan daily and becomes overly curious about Meghan’s life. One day they finally strike up a conversation. The only thing expected from this story is that no one lives the life we imagine for them. ( )

Agatha is a single woman working in a dead-end cleaning job in a supermarket. She is envious of Meaghan, who seems to have it all: nice house, a famous handsome husband, beautiful children, and another on the way. The two women meet in pre-natal class and strike up an acquaintanceship.

Each of these women is nursing a terrible secret that could shatter their lives and leave them in ruins. As Robotham develops their parallel stories, they both become more entangled and engulfed by the lies and pretences that they have been forced to adopt, until one of them takes a step so drastic that everything is brought undone.

It's almost impossible to review this book without giving too much away, so all I can say is that I found it a riveting page-turner and can recommend it to anybody keen on this genre. ( )

Followers of my blog will know that this is one of my favourite Australian authors and that I have read this novel before.

I am reviewing it a second time, because I am re-reading it with a U3A Crime Fiction group. For some of them this is the first time they have read a book by this author.

So here I want to come up with some pointers for our discussion. However I think it is also important that the readers of this blog don't come across any spoilers, although of course in our face to face discussion we will be working on the assumption that all participants have read the novel

Here are some of my pointers

the dual narrators: Agatha and Meghan. We are told who the narrator is at the beginning of every chapter, but did you eventually get to the stage where you knew who the narrator was? What helped you get to this point?
Why does Agatha see Meghan as a model for her own life? What do they have in common? Where do they differ?
How does Agatha stalk/watch Meghan and Jack? Why does she do this?
What do we learn about Agatha's life history?
What secrets do Agatha and Meghan have?
What actions has Agatha taken in her efforts to become a mother?
How has Agatha become a killer?
This novel marks the first appearance of Cyrus Haven, a police profiler who will later appear in his own series
1. Good Girl, Bad Girl (2019)
2. When She Was Good (2020)
3. Lying Beside You (2022)
The BBC TV series: In 2020 the novel became the basis of a 6 episode tv series that, apart from being set in Australia, stayed fairly close plot-wise to the original book. However a second 6 part series screening in 2022 goes well beyond the original book ( )