Past Secrets (by Cathy Kelly)

(Amazon UK link)

I very much liked the books I read by Cathy Kelly in the past year. So when I saw a couple of her books inexpensively at a church sale, it was an easy decision to buy them. I’ve just finished reading ‘Past Secrets’, quite a tome at over 600 pages. And whereas I can sometimes finish a book of that length in just two or three days, it’s taken me over a week to finish this one.

It starts well. Cathy Kelly’s novels sometimes remind me, in their settings (and sometimes their storylines) of Maeve Binchy’s books. This one is set mainly in Ireland too, in a street called Summer Street. The first few chapters introduce us to the viewpoint characters, and although it didn’t grab me at first, and took me a little while to get into it, I thought there was the potential for an excellent story.

Cathy is probably the most interesting character in the novel. She’s an art teacher, mostly quite laid-back. She’s wise and intuitive, sometimes ‘seeing’ things about people, or having a strong sense of disquiet that usually turns out to be justified. She’s happily married to the likeable (though rather two-dimensional) James, and they have two married sons. But she has a bad feeling, and clearly has something in her past which she has been trying to forget.

Faye is a bit of an oddity; it’s clear from the start that she’s created a persona that does everything very precisely, keeping herself to herself. Her whole life revolves around her 17-year-old daughter Amber, who is a talented art student (in a class that Cathy teaches). But Faye has kept something from Amber, believing that if she protects and shelters her, Amber won’t make any bad mistakes. However, Amber has fallen in love… and we first meet her when she’s bunking off school to meet her boyfriend.

Then there’s Maggie, a librarian who has been living away from her home town with a lecturer called Grey. She doesn’t have much self-esteem but he’s been a good influence on her… until she catches him with another woman. Conveniently her mother Una, who lives in Summer Street, has broken a leg, and her parents ask Maggie if she’s willing to return home for a few days.

So it starts well, and while I didn’t find any of the characters very three-dimensional, it didn’t take me long to remember who was whom. It seemed a bit odd that none of them really knew each other until Una’s accident, at which point they all become friendly. But nothing much happens after that. We already know the gist of all three secrets: Cathy did something she regrets with a Polish artist, decades earlier; Maggie was bullied in school; Faye has a wilder past than her daughter could imagine, and wasn’t widowed (as she had pretended). They each have something that they’re ashamed of, something we learn later in the book - but by the time they’re revealed, they no longer seem surprising.

There’s a lot of repetitive introspection in the novel - yes, Maggie has poor self-esteem, and Christie is worried about her past catching up with her, and Faye wishes she had been more honest with her daughter. But I didn’t need quite so many reminders of these things. And, worse, they all seem to change character without any real reason. 

Amber and Faye’s interactions never feel realistic, and while Christie is mostly likeable and mature, the way she lets her husband know about her ‘secret’ is so awful I had to suspend reality for a while. Then, although it’s a minor issue, the extensive use of over-dramatic speech tags became irritating after awhile. It felt in many places as if the book had missed out on the editing process.

Still, it’s not a bad story. There are some interesting subplots, such as a campaign to keep a local park open. I kept reading, even if I didn’t pick it up every spare moment to find out what was happening. The ending was all a bit predictable but satisfactory.

Worth reading if you find it inexpensively, as I did; but I wouldn't particularly recommend it. Cathy Kelly has written some much better books.

Review copyright 2019 Sue's Book Reviews