What ‘All Our Secrets’ Is About
Gracie is a young girl living in a small town in Australia. She thinks she has problems at school until other kids – kids she knows – start going missing … and turning up dead. The mystery only deepens as far too much time goes by and fear causes everyone in the town to react in extreme ways.
But the one link between the dead children is they were all River Children – the result of something the adults talk about only in whispers, if at all. Gracie’s brother is a River Child – will he be next? And what happened that day at the River Picnic?
Plus, Gracie’s mum has chucked her dad out of their house! How can Gracie get her parents back together again?
And if that wasn’t bad enough, a cult-leader and his followers are also part of the mix. Will Gracie’s mother become another of this charismatic man’s wives? And could he be the killer?
Accusations rise and fall, relationships blossom and die, and innocence is lost forever.
What I Thought of All ‘Our Secrets’
I really enjoyed this extraordinarily well-told story. The book is written entirely from Gracie’s point of view and her voice is distinct – poignant and hilarious in turn. When I read her piece of writing at the end it had me sobbing … and laughing out loud.
This story took me on an incredible journey, all from a child’s perspective, and made me love all the oddities of the people in Coongahoola, New South Wales.
I thoroughly recommend this book. It won the Ngaio Marsh Award for Best First Novel in 2018. 5 out of 5 stars.
You can buy it here (directly from the author!) and here (Amazon).