{"id":2530,"date":"2021-07-22T22:18:39","date_gmt":"2021-07-22T22:18:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/?p=2530"},"modified":"2023-04-02T23:14:18","modified_gmt":"2023-04-02T23:14:18","slug":"secrets-of-our-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/?p=2530","title":{"rendered":"Secrets of Our House"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>This is one of those books that makes you want to befriend the characters, or at least get annual updates on how it\u2019s all going.<\/strong> It\u2019s a family story with two couples as focal points: Desiree (Desi) and Peter, whose marriage seems to be ending, due in part to a mysterious past event; and their daughter Jules and her boyfriend Will, crazy-in-love teenagers. While the young couple\u2019s romance is just starting, it also seems doomed, as Jules is a rich, summertime-only visitor to Will\u2019s rural North Carolina town and is leaving soon for college while less-well-off Will stays put. Both relationships are tested by tragedies and bring each character\u2019s most extreme emotions to the forefront, feelings that are poignantly described by Frey (Until I Find You, 2020). Desi is a particular highlight, with her flawed parenting lending a rawness and realness to the book; the strain induced by tragedy brings her to drop a bombshell revelation that shocks family and readers alike. After this, you may feel like no other characters can measure up and head straight to the TV; once that has passed, try a book I\u2019ve recommended in First Clue before, but I\u2019m doing it again! Paullina Simons\u2019s <em>The Girl in Times Square<\/em>; those characters almost ruined me for other books.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is one of those books that makes you want to befriend the characters, or at least get annual updates on how it\u2019s all going. It\u2019s a family story with&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2529,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[57,164,51,53],"class_list":["post-2530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-review","tag-domestic","tag-star","tag-thrillers","tag-women"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/formidable\/4\/Secrets-400x400.jpg","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/formidable\/4\/Secrets-400x600.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"Henrietta Thornton","author_link":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/?author=4"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firstcluereviews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}