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Whatchareadin (174 KP) rated Zero Day (John Puller #1) in Books

May 10, 2018

Zero Day (John Puller #1)

David Baldacci | 2011 | Fiction & Poetry

9.3

(4 Ratings)

Book Rating

John Puller is an Army investigator. He is called to Drake, West Virginia when a fellow Army officer is found dead(along with his wife and children) in his in-laws home. With the help of local police chief Cole, they uncover some interesting dealings in Drake.

Drake is a mining town, as most are, in West Virginia. When people start showing up dead in this small town for no apparent reason, people tend to get really upset by that. So why are people getting killed? What is going on in this town that someone is trying to keep secret? Who is behind it all.

In this first John Puller novel, you are pulled in from the beginning. David Baldacci does an amazing job of drawing you into his stories and keeping you there.

**Beware** If you are listening to the audio you will hear actual gun shots and explosions! Be prepared!!

Kudos

Hazel (1853 KP) rated This Secret We're Keeping in Books

Dec 7, 2018

This Secret We're Keeping

Rebecca Done | 2016 | Fiction & Poetry

7.3

(3 Ratings)

Book Rating

I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads.

A pupil and a teacher. Is it ever right to break the rules? This is the dilemma which debut author Rebecca Done basis her novel on. This Secret We’re Keeping is set seventeen years after a maths teacher began an inappropriate relationship with a schoolgirl; but did he really deserve what happened to him, after all he loved her and she loved him?

Jess has never got over her love for the teacher she ran away with when she was fifteen. Although she has got her life together: living in Norfolk, freelance catering business, a rich boyfriend; she cannot help but think back to way Mr. Landley, Matthew, made her feel. Suddenly, after a chance encounter, Matthew is back in her life with a new name, Will, and a girlfriend and daughter. Delighted to see each other again, it is not long before they fall back into their illicit affair, however the potential consequences are almost as bad as the previous time.

This Secret We’re Keeping causes the reader to question strong personal beliefs, primarily whether a teacher-student relationship is as wrong as it sounds. If certain events in this novel were to be made public through the media, the majority would instantly hate Matthew, deem him a paedophile, and be satisfied with his punishment. However on reading the situation from his point of view, initial opinions begin to crumble. It appears he genuinely loved Jess, and she him; there were no abusive occurrences, and it was Jess that instigated the relationship in the first place. Did Matthew truly deserve to go to prison for something that would have been legal in a year’s time?

Matthew/Will’s narrative helps to show that it is virtually impossible to pinpoint a single moment that changes a life forever. At which point did he know that he had stepped over the line from right to wrong? In hindsight it is fairly obvious, but at the time the warning signs are not so clear.

Due to the challenging of preset judgments, This Secret We’re Keeping can often be difficult to read. Whilst on the one hand logic will be screaming, “This is wrong!” Done plays with her readers’ sentimentalities to consider the other side of the argument. As the novel progresses it becomes easier to fall in line with Jess and Matthew/Will’s viewpoints, however a brief interaction towards the end forces readers to temporarily reconsider their forgone conclusion. After all, how much can a first person narrative really be trusted?

Having read the blurb I admit I was a bit wary about reading this book. For one, it falls under the genre of Chick Lit, which I am not all that fond of, but secondly the book’s theme appeared rather controversial. On the whole, This Secret We’re Keeping was much better than I was anticipating, however I began to lose interest towards the end as nothing much had changed throughout the present day chapters, and it was already obvious how the past narrative would pan out. The ending is also frustratingly ambiguous, as we never find out whether either of the key characters gets a “happy ever after.”

If you are someone who enjoys Chick Lit, do not let the themes of the book put you off. This Secret We’re Keeping is essentially a romance story, one that is written remarkably well for a first time author. Rebecca Done will be a name to look out for in the world of contemporary literature.