The Secrets We Left Behind by Susan Elliot Wright is a gripping story of love and loss and illustrates what any mother would do for her child.
At the beginning of the story the narrator does not give her name but you come to find out that she is Joanna, presently a mother herself. She tells her story starting when she was a teen. Her mother had just passed away and her father left many years ago. She is now on her own, ready to start her new life. But the London streets aren’t like they are down on the coast, in the small town she grew up in. Luckily she meets Eve, a sweet, caring, and sensible soul who takes her under her wing and teaches her how wonderful life can truly be.
Jo moves in with Eve and her boyfriend Scott and they soon become a close family of three. This was all in the past. Now, Scott has come back, on his deathbed, threatening to tell Duncan and Hannah, Jo’s husband and daughter, the truth about when they lived as squatters about 30 years ago. Scott wants to clear his conscious regardless of what it does to Jo and the life she has built since then, built on lies.
I give this book five out of five stars for its intricate plot that is woven so tightly and neatly you feel as though you are there with the characters, feeling what they are going through, living your life alongside them. The story flips back and forth between past and present but does so in such a way that there is no interruption to the plot and no loose ends left. It is amazingly touching and you will come away loving Jo and the other characters as if you have now all become family. The question is, can you forgive Jo for what she’s done?