Name: Secrets She Left Behind
ISBN: 9780778315506

Diane Chamberlain

Abandoned by his mother, teenaged Keith struggles with physical and emotional scars from an arson fire and harbors hatred for his half-sister, Maggie, who has been released from prison for her role in setting the fire.

Secrets She Left Behind

One afternoon, single mother Sara Weston says that she's going to the store—and never returns. In her absence, she leaves her teenage son alone with his damaged past and a legacy of secrets. Keith Weston nearly lost his life in an act of arson. He survived—but with devastating physical and emotional scars. Without his mother, he has no one to help him heal, no money, nothing to live for but the medications that numb his pain. Isolated and angry, his hatred has one tight focus: his half sister, Maggie Lockwood. Nineteen-year-old Maggie Lockwood spent a year in prison for the acts that led up to the fire. Now she's back home. But her release cannot free her from the burden of guilt she carries. She grew up with Keith Weston, played with him as a child…and recently learned they share the same father. Now the person Keith despises most is the closest thing he has to family—until Sara returns. If Sara returns….

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This is a follow-up to Before the Storm. While I enjoyed Secrets, I think Storm was better. Secrets picks up from Storm just as Maggie Lockwood is released from prison after serving a year for arson. Her home town is less than welcoming and she struggles to fit back in and deal with her guilt and regret. Secrets also spends more time from Keith's POV, one of the victims of the fire and also Maggie's half brother.

I think that Storm was a better read because most of the conflict was character-driven so the reader really got to know the characters. In Secrets, most of the conflict was plot-driven as Keith's mom goes missing and a new girl with dubious motives befriends Maggie and Keith.

Secrets is defintely worth a read, but I would recommend reading Storm first.

Secrets She Left Behind

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