Title: The Housekeeper's SecretAuthor: Iona Grey
Published by: St. Martin's Press on Aug. 13, 2024
Genres: Historical Fiction
Pages: 368
Format: ARC, Paperback
Source: St. Martin's Press
Book Rating: 8/10
Duty, desire, and deception reside under one roof.
Standing in the remote windswept moors of Northern England, Coldwell Hall is the perfect place to hide. For the past five years, Kate Furniss has maintained her professional mask so carefully that she almost believes she is the character she has created: Coldwell’s respectable housekeeper.
It is the summer of 1911 that brings new faces above and below the stairs of Coldwell Hall―including the handsome and mysterious new footman, Jem Arden. Just as the house’s shuttered rooms open, so does Kate’s guarded heart to a love affair that is as intense as it is forbidden. But Kate can feel her control slipping as Jem harbors secrets of his own.
Told in alternating timelines from the last sun-drenched summer of the Edwardian Age to the mud-filled trenches of WWI, The Housekeeper’s Secret opens its door to a world of romance, the truths we hold onto, and the past we must let go.
Review:
Compelling, intense, and absorbing!
The Housekeeper’s Secret is a passionate, captivating tale set in England during the early 1900s that takes you into the life of Kate Furniss, a young housekeeper who, after fleeing an abusive husband and changing her name, finds her world turned upside down again when a handsome new footman arrives at Coldwell Hall who seems to be driven by secrets of his own.
The prose is rich and vivid. The characters are determined, vulnerable, and brave. And the plot, told through a mixture of letters and narration, is an intriguing blend of life, loss, secrets, surprises, heartbreak, betrayal, survival, danger, grief, war, friendship, violence, and forbidden love.
Overall, The Housekeeper’s Secret is an insightful, enticing, atmospheric tale by Grey that transports you to another time and place and immerses you so thoroughly into the feelings, lives, and personalities of the characters you can’t help but be fully engrossed and completely invested throughout.
This book is available now.
Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.
Thank you to St. Martin’s Press for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.
About Iona Grey
Iona Grey has a degree in English Literature and Language from Manchester University, an obsession with history and an enduring fascination with the lives of women in the twentieth century. She lives in the rural North West of England with her husband and three daughters. She is the award-winning author of Letters to the Lost, and her new book The Glittering Hour is on sale October 17 2019 (UK) and December 10, 2019 (US).
