2022 Book Review #15: Secrets of Eden

 

Well, one of my fave authors was featured at our town library and I happened to spy this book that was copyrighted several years ago but that I somehow missed.  I've read many of this authors novels and most of them I have thoroughly enjoyed.  

STORY SUMMARY

Alice Hayward is married to George Hayward and they have a 15 year old daughter named Katie. They live in a small village near Bennington, Vermont.

Alice gets baptized on a Sunday in a local pond with the Reverend Stephen Drew performing the rite. The one word she says as she comes up out of the water is, "There". Stephen has no idea what she means.  Later that evening, after she is home with her husband and her daughter is in Albany, NY with a friend attending a concert, she is killed by her husband  who then shoots himself. 

Rev. Drew is tortured by the finality of that short utterance Alice gives. He begins to feel his faith slipping away and he is spared by a meeting with an author named Heather Laurent who has written two very successful  books about angels. 

Heather survived a similar tragedy in her  childhood.  She and her sister Amanda had parents who were always fighting and one day her father kills her mother and then hangs himself. Heather identifies with Alice's daughter, Katie.  She offers to be a mentor for the teen and a shoulder for Stephen to lean on who has fled the ministry to be with Heather and see if there is anything he can save from the wreckage around him. 

Soon the state's attorney begins to suspect that Alice's husband might not have killed himself....there is evidence that the gun was shot from a greater distance than possible if it had been a suicide.   The state's attorney also finds out that Alice was keeping secrets....in a diary....and that some of those secrets involved the Reverend Stephen Drew!

Who killed George Hayward??

MY THOUGHTS

First of all, I loved that this book was set very close to the Capital Region of NY and in fact included our  capital city of Albany! Also, the title was provocative to me.  I also loved that the book was in 4 different voices (4 different sections):  Stephen Drew(the minister), Catherine Benincasa (the state attorney), Heather Laurent (the author), and finally, Katie Hayward (the daughter). 

The book got going very quickly but during the Heather section it really bogged down for me.  I found myself skimming over some sections to get the gist of it, instead of actually reading it word for word and by now I had figured out who actually killed George. 

This book was not my favorite of this author.  It does show the complexities of marriage, domestic violence, alcoholism, and the effects all of these things have on society. I found the whole angel thing just weird.  

In my opinion, this book is appropriate for ages 17 and older (due to mature content). 

On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the highest, I rate this a 7.