From the New York Times and #1 internationally bestselling author of Homecoming , The Distant Hours , The Forgotten Garden , and The House at Riverton comes a spellbinding novel of family secrets, murder, and enduring love. During a picnic at her family’s farm in the English countryside, sixteen-year-old Laurel Nicolson witnesses a shocking crime, a crime that challenges everything she knows about her adored mother, Dorothy. Now, fifty years later, Laurel and her sisters are meeting at the farm to celebrate Dorothy’s ninetieth birthday. Realizing that this is her last chance to discover the truth about that long-ago day, Laurel searches for answers that can only be found in Dorothy’s past. Clue by clue, she traces a secret history of three strangers from vastly different worlds thrown together in war-torn London—Dorothy, Vivien, and Jimmy—whose lives are forever after entwined. A gripping story of deception and passion, The Secret Keeper will keep you enthralled to the last page. “As always, Morton weaves an intriguing mystery, shifting between past and present and among fully realized characters harboring deep secrets.”— People Magazine **** (The Secret Keeper) ― People "Morton has obvious star power. . . . Her novels are Australia’s most successful exports since Colleen McCullough’s “Thorn Birds” stormed the world in 1977.” — The New York Times Book Review (The Secret Keeper) ― The New York Times Book Review “Morton is masterful at controlling a story’s flow and tension. Readers will not suspect the twist at the end.” -- Publisher's Weekly (The Secret Keeper) ― Publisher's Weekly “A gripping tale of love and betrayal.”— Good Housekeeping (The Secret Keeper) ― Good Housekeeping Kate Morton is the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of The House at Riverton , The Forgotten Garden , The Distant Hours , The Secret Keeper , The Lake House , and The Clockmaker’s Daughter . Her books are published in thirty-eight languages and have been #1 bestsellers worldwide. Born and raised in Australia, she holds degrees in dramatic art and English literature, and now lives with her family in London and Australia. Visit her online at KateMorton.com or on Facebook and Instagram at @KateMortonAuthor. Chapter 1 1 RURAL England, a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, a summer’s day at the start of the 1960s. The house is unassuming: half-timbered, with white paint peeling gently on the western side and clematis scrambling up the plaster. The chimney pots are steaming, and you know, just by looking, that there’s something tasty simmering on the stove top beneath. It’s something in the way the vegetable patch has been laid out, just so, at the back of the house, the proud gleam of the leadlight windows, the careful patching of the roofing tiles. A rustic fence hems the house, and a wooden gate separates the tame garden from the meadows on either side, the copse beyond. Through the knotted trees a stream trickles lightly over stones, flitting between sunlight and shadow as it has done for centuries, but it can’t be heard from here. It’s too far away. The house is quite alone, sitting at the end of a long, dusty driveway, invisible from the country lane whose name it shares. Apart from an occasional breeze, all is still, all is quiet. A pair of white hula hoops, last year’s craze, stand propped against the wisteria arch. A teddy bear with an eye patch and a look of dignified tolerance keeps watch from his vantage point in the peg basket of a green laundry trolley. A wheelbarrow loaded with pots waits patiently by the shed. Despite its stillness, perhaps because of it, the whole scene has an expectant, charged feeling, like a theater stage in the moments before the actors walk out from the wings. When every possibility stretches ahead and fate has not yet been sealed by circumstance, and then— “Laurel!” A child’s impatient voice, some distance off. “Lau rel , where are you?” And it’s as if a spell has been broken. The house lights dim; the curtain lifts. A clutch of hens appears from nowhere to peck between the bricks of the garden path, a jay drags his shadow across the garden, a tractor in the nearby meadow putters to life. And high above it all, lying on her back on the floor of a wooden tree house, a girl of sixteen pushes the lemon Spangle she’s been sucking hard against the roof of her mouth and sighs. It was cruel, she supposed, just to let them keep hunting for her, but with the heat wave and the secret she was nursing, the effort of games—childish games at that—was just too much to muster. Besides, it was all part of the challenge, and as Daddy was always saying, fair was fair and they’d never learn if they didn’t try. It wasn’t Laurel’s fault she was better at finding hiding places. They were younger than her, it was true, but it wasn’t as if they were babies. And anyway, she didn’t particularly want to be found. Not today. Not now. All she wanted to do