Truths I Never Told You
A Novel
-
-
4.3 • 372 Ratings
-
-
- $14.99
Publisher Description
“For fans who appreciate emotionally wrenching reads such as those by Sarah Jio or Kristin Hannah.” –Library Journal
“Fans of Jodi Picoult and Kristin Hannah now have a new go-to author.” —Sally Hepworth, bestselling author of The Secrets of Midwives
From the bestselling author of The Things We Cannot Say, Before I Let You Go, and The Warsaw Orphan, comes a poignant post-WWII novel that explores the expectations society places on women set within an engrossing family mystery that may unravel everything once believed to be true.
With her father recently moved to a care facility, Beth Walsh volunteers to clear out the family home and is surprised to discover the door to her childhood playroom padlocked. She’s even more shocked at what’s behind it—a hoarder’s mess of her father’s paintings, mounds of discarded papers and miscellaneous junk in the otherwise fastidiously tidy house.
As she picks through the clutter, she finds a loose journal entry in what appears to be her late mother’s handwriting. Beth and her siblings grew up believing their mother died in a car accident when they were little more than toddlers, but this note suggests something much darker.
Beth soon pieces together a disturbing portrait of a woman suffering from postpartum depression and a husband who bears little resemblance to the loving father Beth and her siblings know. With a newborn of her own and struggling with motherhood, Beth finds there may be more tying her and her mother together than she ever suspected.
Don’t miss Kelly Rimmer’s newest novel, The Paris Agent, where a family’s innocent search for answers brings a long-forgotten, twenty-five-year-old mystery featuring two female SOE operatives comes to light!
For more by Kelly Rimmer, look for: Before I Let You Go The Things We Cannot Say The Warsaw Orphan The German Wife
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Postpartum depression impacts two generations of women in Rimmer's illuminating tale of a family's unspoken troubles (after The Things We Cannot Say). After taking fertility drugs for six years during the 1990s, child psychologist Beth Walsh feels that having Noah, now five months old, was a mistake, and fears she might purposefully harm him, thoughts she keeps to herself and finds especially disturbing. Beth welcomes the distraction of helping her three older siblings clean out the family home in Seattle as their father, Patrick, enters hospice care with dementia. In the attic, she finds journal entries from her late mother, Grace. Written in the 1950s, they leave an unsettling image of the seemingly perfect Patrick, describing his unhappiness and heavy drinking. As the siblings pick up on Beth's depression and rally to get her help, their support contrasts with Patrick's dismissive response to Grace's "baby blues," as evidenced in the journal entries. In Patrick's dementia, he mistakes Beth for Maryanne, Grace's sister, and tries to apologize for past wrongs, leading Beth to clues about her parents' gloom. With a mix of engrossing mystery and deep feeling, Rimmer offers a harrowing account of a doomed mother's experience in the '50s and a family grappling with the truth. Rimmer's suspenseful narrative will enthrall and move readers.
Customer Reviews
See AllGood book - Important Storyline
Important storyline dealing with the taboo topic of PPD, a good read. The author has a good storytelling manner that’s easy to follow
Ties into current day
I never knew much about postpartum depression so this book has opened my eyes to this real problem. This is a good book but don’t think it will be uplifting in anyway. Grace’s feelings that she only had one decision to get out of a desperate situation was very emotional. I felt most sad for the children. I don’t want to give away any of the storyline but when they experienced the loss of their second “mother” I really lost it. This is a good book and I hope anyone experiencing postpartum depression realizes there’s help.
Truths I never Told
Excellent story and characters!