They say you can never go home again. Whether that’s actually true or not, one of the big fiction tropes I see a lot is the story of someone who has made a successful life for himself or herself elsewhere in the world, but now finds that it’s time to return home for some reason or another. In Mary McNear’s The Secrets We Carried,
Quinn left home to escape the feelings following a tragedy she and her friends experienced in high school to find a better life in college and beyond. We’re ten years out from the accident, and she’s returning home after building a successful life as a writer in Chicago. She’s now facing all the things she’d left behind and navigating new relationships with the various people from her past while discovering that you can’t truly outrun your past – but you can make peace with it and forage a future going forward.
About The Secrets We Carried
• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks (September 25, 2018)
Readers who love Susan Wiggs and Susan Mallery will adore New York Times bestselling author Mary McNear newest novel. A young woman travels home to Butternut Lake, confronting her past and the tragedy she and her friends have silently carried with them for over a decade while also facing an unknown future.
Butternut Lake is an idyllic place—but for one woman, her return to the lake town she once called home is bittersweet…
Sometimes life changes in an instant.
Quinn LaPointe grew up on beautiful Butternut Lake, safe, secure, sure of her future. But after a high school tragedy, she left for college and never looked back. Becoming a successful writer in Chicago, she worked to keep out the dark memories of an accident that upended her life. But now, after ten years, she’s finally returned home.
Butternut is the same, and yet everything is changed. Gabriel Shipp, once her very best friend, doesn’t want anything to do with her. The charming guy she remembers is now brooding and withdrawn. Tanner Lightman, the seductive brother of her late boyfriend, wants her to stick around. Annika Bergstrom, an old classmate who once hated Quinn, is now friendly. Everyone, it seems, has a secret.
Determined to come to terms with the tragedy and rebuild old relationships, Quinn settles into Loon Bay Cabins, a rustic but cozy lakeside resort, where she begins writing down her memories of the year before the accident. Her journey though the past leads her to some surprising discoveries about the present. As secrets are revealed and a new love emerges, Quinn finds that understanding the past is the key to the future.
Social Media
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Purchase Links
HarperCollins | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
About Mary McNear
Mary McNear, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Butternut Lake series, writes in a local doughnut shop, where she sips Diet Pepsi, observes the hubbub of neighborhood life, and tries to resist the constant temptation of freshly made doughnuts. Mary bases her novels on a lifetime of summers spent in a small town on a lake in the northern Midwest.
Find out more about Mary at her website, and connect with her on Facebook and Twitter.
