Truths I Never Told You…

About the Book:

It begins with the discovery of a tattered letter in the attic … A heart-tugging story of family secrets by the Top 10 bestselling Australian author

1959: Grace is a young mother with four children under four. All she ever wanted was to have a family of her own, but there are thoughts Grace cannot share with anyone in the months after childbirth. Instead she pours her deepest fears into the pages of a notebook, hiding them where she knows husband Patrick will never look. When Grace falls pregnant again, she turns to her sister, Maryanne, for help.

1996: When Beth’s father, Patrick, is diagnosed with dementia, she and her siblings make the heart-wrenching decision to put him into care. As Beth is clearing the family home, she discovers a series of notes. Patrick’s children grew up believing their mother died in a car accident, but these notes suggest something much darker may be true.

TRUTHS I NEVER TOLD YOU is the unputdownable, unforgettable story of motherhood and marriage by Kelly Rimmer, author of BEFORE I LET YOU GO and THE THINGS WE CANNOT SAY

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My Thoughts:

Kelly Rimmer doesn’t shy away from tackling the hard stuff within her novels. This is the third novel by Kelly that I’ve read and she is often compared to Jodi Picoult, a comparison that is not unwarranted. In Truths I Never Told You, Kelly takes an intimate look at inter-generational postpartum depression, using a dual timeline narrative to contrast attitudes and treatment options during the 1950s and the 1990s.

Along the way, she dips into women’s reproductive rights and abortion as a method of contraception for women from previous generations. These are heavy issues and when you throw a dying father into the mix, who is also suffering from dementia, and a whole host of marriage and family dysfunction issues, the narrative was for me, at times, challenging to relax into.

There is also the thread of a mystery running through this story pertaining to the circumstances surrounding Grace’s death and the inconsistency between her date of death and the memories her grown children have of her. This angle of the story appealed to me more than the beginning focus of the novel. The introduction of Maryanne, Grace’s sister, into the 1950s storyline was a welcome one; I found her interesting as a character and insightful in terms of offering a holistic perspective on women’s lives in the 1950s.

Kelly Rimmer writes with her usual mix of empathy and insight to deliver a compelling, well informed, and intensely emotional read.

☕☕☕+1/2

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Thanks is extended to Hachette Australia for providing me with a copy of Truths I Never Told You for review.

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About the Author:

Kelly Rimmer is the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestselling author of ten novels, including The Secret Daughter and The Things We Cannot Say. She’s sold more than one million books, and her novels have been translated into more than 20 languages. Kelly lives in rural Australia with her family and fantastically naughty dogs, Sully and Basil.

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Truths I Never Told You
Published by Hachette Australia
Released 25th February 2020