Name: The Secret Chord
ISBN: 9781642470437

Virginia Hale

Disciplining rowdy adolescents at boarding school is so much easier for Kate than hiding her true feelings for Tilly, once her best friend.

The Secret Chord

Jude Silberfeld

Wow wow wow. I had to make myself stop halfway to get some sleep before going back to The Secret Chord as soon as I woke up this morning. This novel is a rollercoaster of feelings, emotions and angst and I’d happily go for more.

Tilly and Kate were schoolmates at St. Joan’s Catholic school, they were roommates and then a bit more but didn’t go very far, as Tilly was planning on becoming a nun. When they meet again twelve years after graduation as temporary teachers at their old school, Tilly is engaged to a much older man, a vicar who seems mostly interested in her as a nanny for his two young children. Kate, on the other hand, is still as in love with Tilly as she was at sixteen.

I don’t know what it is with books involving Catholic characters but I often postpone reading them (I’m not a Catholic, which might be partly why) only to find that they’re often the most intense. Reconciling religious feelings and being attracted to women makes for a great romance when it’s well done. Tilly is so naive and at the same time so willing to understand, so strong and sweet and complicated, Kate doesn’t stand a chance. My heart was breaking along with Kate’s and mended with hers as well. It could be very annoying, this back and forth Tilly is doing, but it’s so cleverly written that it’s inherently poignant. 

This book is going to stay in my mind for a while, no doubt. 

I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Megan Cooper

his is a wonderfully poignant slow burn, second chance romance that has lingered in my mind for days after I finished reading it. The story unfolds slowly but I never felt bored - I was captivated from the fist page and that lasted right to the last one. There's just the right level of angst and pining to propel things along but this isn't a total hand-wringer. Instead, this is an intelligent and mature novel of love.

The story itself is pretty simple - Kate, a music teacher, takes a year long position at the isolated Catholic boarding school she had attended as a young girl and finds herself reunited with her first love, Tilly, who has also returned to the school as a teacher. The complexity is in the characters and the way the story unfolds - I really was really impressed with Hale's writing as it drew me in and kept me engaged. 

Kate is a fantastic character who carries the book - she has a remarkable level of maturity that is underscored by her vulnerability when it comes to Tilly. Knowing that she has and always will love Tilly - she struggles with accepting that Tilly may never be able to return her feelings. Kate's honesty, in her own thoughts as well as in her interactions with others, is refreshing and particularly amusing. I loved her scenes with the students -some of the more humourous moments of the book and I found myself invested in each of the girls and their exasperating antics but they also had flashes of compassion and maturity. Her love for Tilly shines through the entire book. 

The story is told in third person narration from Kate's perspective. This allows the reader to build a strong bond with Kate, but the down side is that Tilly is a bit of a mystery ... to Kate and the reader. We see Tilly through Kate's lens, but she is almost over-romanticized and too good to be true - beautiful, caring, innocent and naive with a strong devotion to God (and a bit uptight and repressed). She appears to spend most of her time devoted to helping others and working in the gardens while Kate pines and convinces herself not to try and interfere in Tilly's decisions. Through their interactions, Hawkins shows rather than tells Tilly's feelings and conflicts.There's a lot of conflict that her character has to deal with - raised by her aunt in the convent, she has a strong and clear devotion to God, but the feelings she doesn't want to acknowledge are at odds with the teachings of the Church she so desperately loves. She is, without a doubt, a good person - better than most, but that innate kindness and love leaves her open to be taken advantage of, especially by the rather vicar who's own religious devotion seems more shallow and self-serving. 

I really enjoyed this one and it was a welcome change from the cookie cutter lesfic romance or intrigue novels I've been reading lately. 

Strongly recommended.

The Secret Chord

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