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Keeping Secrets
Book by Gee, Sue
- GenresFiction
304 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1980
5 people are currently reading
68 people want to read
About the author
Sue Gee
23 books38 followersSue Gee was born in India, where her father was an Army officer. She had a her elder brother, Robert, now a retired radiographer living in Spain. She grew up on a Devon farm, and in a village in Leicestershire, before instaled in Surrey in 1960. She lived in north London for 27 years with the journalist Marek Mayer, they had a son, Jamie. She married Mayer in November 2003, less of two years before his death on 23th July 2005. Now, she lived in the town of Hay-on-Wye in the Welsh borders.
Published since 1980, her novel Letters From Prague, was serialised on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour and Her play, Ancient and Modern, was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2004, with Juliet Stevenson in the lead role. Her novel The Hours of the Night which received wide critical acclaim and was the controversial winner of the 1997 Romantic Novel of the Year Award, an award she won again in 2004 by her novel Thin Air.
She was Programme Leader for the MA Writing programme at Middlesex University from 2000 to 2008. She is currently reading for a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing at the University of East Anglia. She has been awarded a Royal Literary Fund Fellowship.
Published since 1980, her novel Letters From Prague, was serialised on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour and Her play, Ancient and Modern, was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2004, with Juliet Stevenson in the lead role. Her novel The Hours of the Night which received wide critical acclaim and was the controversial winner of the 1997 Romantic Novel of the Year Award, an award she won again in 2004 by her novel Thin Air.
She was Programme Leader for the MA Writing programme at Middlesex University from 2000 to 2008. She is currently reading for a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing at the University of East Anglia. She has been awarded a Royal Literary Fund Fellowship.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
March 6, 2024
Sue Gee, it's a great writer. I give 3 stars because everyone in the book pissed me off.
Other than that, all good. Good writing. Good pace. Maybe a little difficult to read when tired as small letters and very little spacing.
Other than that, all good. Good writing. Good pace. Maybe a little difficult to read when tired as small letters and very little spacing.
December 3, 2024
In this 1980s story, we have Hilda, a London teacher, knowingly and willingly participating in an affair with a married man named Stephen Knowles; whose wife, Miriam, is a mother of one and a homemaker of their house in a village near Norwich, UK. She also owns and runs a local shop in Woodburgh, making curtains. It's a classic case of Miriam loving Stephen, with little in return.
I found it hard not to feel anger towards these shallow and deceitful characters, although I did try to view the story with objectivity. Because God knows it happens in real life. And, I suppose, if anything, it teaches people who read this book the harm that can come from interfering with an established family, and how deceitfulness spreads paranoia and is especially pernicious. Affecting not just the couple involved but siblings, wives, children and so on.
To classify it; I'd say that it's reasonably sophisticated women's literature. Not too captivating, but well worth a read to pass the time away.
I do admire Sue Gee as an author, I really do think so much of her after three books of hers that I have read. If you haven't read "The Hours of the Night," then you must. It's a village story that is hauntingly beautiful. Her descriptions make you feel the rain on your skin, the mist in the air and the reclusive ambience of living in the country. She writes with such delicacy in that one. A true gem.
I am careful as to what material of Gees that I choose, as what she writes from novel to novel is so vastly varied in almost every way.
I say that she has a writing style uniquely unto herself. Unspoiled by trashy competition, and the tone of her stories is always unnerving. Freshly original.
I found it hard not to feel anger towards these shallow and deceitful characters, although I did try to view the story with objectivity. Because God knows it happens in real life. And, I suppose, if anything, it teaches people who read this book the harm that can come from interfering with an established family, and how deceitfulness spreads paranoia and is especially pernicious. Affecting not just the couple involved but siblings, wives, children and so on.
To classify it; I'd say that it's reasonably sophisticated women's literature. Not too captivating, but well worth a read to pass the time away.
I do admire Sue Gee as an author, I really do think so much of her after three books of hers that I have read. If you haven't read "The Hours of the Night," then you must. It's a village story that is hauntingly beautiful. Her descriptions make you feel the rain on your skin, the mist in the air and the reclusive ambience of living in the country. She writes with such delicacy in that one. A true gem.
I am careful as to what material of Gees that I choose, as what she writes from novel to novel is so vastly varied in almost every way.
I say that she has a writing style uniquely unto herself. Unspoiled by trashy competition, and the tone of her stories is always unnerving. Freshly original.
October 30, 2021
Thought provoking.
April 7, 2009
My mum has been urging me to read this author for ages. Two sisters have secrets: one is now married happily with two lovely girls, the other is having an affair with a married man and then makes the decision to have a child by him. You also get to know the unfaithful husband's poor and unloved wife. This was enjoyable and well written.
December 29, 2013
"Keeping Secrets" by Sue Gee (read July 2013)
I thought one good Aga saga by Sue Gee deserved another. Although Gee must be 'differently sponsored' ... hers are Rayburn Sagas - doesn't quite have the same ring to it. But otherwise true to the genre!
In buying this e-book I discovered Bello, Macmillan's e-book imprint, specialising in out-of-print books. Could be interesting.
I thought one good Aga saga by Sue Gee deserved another. Although Gee must be 'differently sponsored' ... hers are Rayburn Sagas - doesn't quite have the same ring to it. But otherwise true to the genre!
In buying this e-book I discovered Bello, Macmillan's e-book imprint, specialising in out-of-print books. Could be interesting.
November 9, 2011
There is continued urgency in the story and I am unsure whether I liked it or not. It did keep me turning the pages and reading yet often I experienced it as foreboding of tragedy which didn't occur. When eventually it did, I somehow couldn't very well relate to it anymore.
March 26, 2013
An enjoyable story of sisters/ motherhood/ marriage & affairs
June 16, 2014
Ok but obvious plot and thin characters
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews