Tell Me Your Secret by Deirdre Purcell

The story begins in Ireland in 1944 and spans 60 years. It’s a tale of a family with secrets, terrible secrets formed by misplaced ideas of discipline and justice.

The Shine family lived in the “Big House” in their Irish village. Violet Shine is a beautiful 16 year old who has fallen in love with a village boy who would be deemed very unsuitable by her family. So they have been meeting secretly. Naturally, her father discovers them and the story unfolds from there. The punishment meted out to her is truly unimaginable for she is imprisoned in an attic in their house for nearly 35 years!

Despite that last sentence this is not a story of revenge or even hate. It’s a beautifully told story of love and forgiveness. The story is told in many voices, starting with Violet’s. Claudine is the modern voice of the story, the real estate agent who is interested in the old house in the village now in disrepair but still worth a lot of money. She begins to investigate its ownership and discovers a startling connection to her own story about family.

The story is told in the first person by a variety of speakers and it’s easy to be completely taken in by the tale, indeed it was hard for me to put the book down. This is the first book I’ve read by Deirdre Purcell but I can tell it won’t be my last.