Little Secrets
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4.0 • 3 Ratings
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
What happens when ambition trumps the truth?
A town reeling in the wake of tragedy
An arsonist is on the loose in Colmstock, Australia, most recently burning down the town’s courthouse and killing a young boy who was trapped inside.
An aspiring journalist desperate for a story
The clock is ticking for Rose Blakey. With nothing but rejections from newspapers piling up, her job pulling beers for cops at the local tavern isn’t nearly enough to cover rent. Rose needs a story—a big one.
Little dolls full of secrets
In the weeks after the courthouse fire, precise porcelain replicas of Colmstock’s daughters begin turning up on doorsteps, terrifying parents and testing the limits of the town’s already fractured police force.
Rose may have finally found her story. But as her articles gain traction and the boundaries of her investigation blur, Colmstock is seized by a seething paranoia. Soon, no one is safe from suspicion. And when Rose’s attention turns to the mysterious stranger living in the rooms behind the tavern, neighbor turns on neighbor and the darkest side of self-preservation is revealed.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Aspiring journalist Rose Blakey, the protagonist of Snoekstra's uneven second thriller (after 2016's Only Daughter), is desperate to escape her small town of Colmstock, Australia, and her unhappy family. Spending evenings serving beer to the local cops, one of whom spends most of his time leering at her, is not how she pictured her life. When the courthouse burns down, killing a child, the town residents are devastated, and when someone begins leaving porcelain dolls on doorsteps, people are further alarmed. Rose sees opportunity and submits a lurid story about the dolls to a newspaper. After it's accepted, the ecstatic Rose plows unthinkingly over anyone who disagrees with her, while the inept police only help fuel the town's growing hysteria. Rather than plumb the dark depths of a town in economic ruin, Snoekstra instead presents a chorus line of people behaving very badly. The many twists (one of which offers a bit of clever irony) and the big reveal will mainly strain reader credulity.)
