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second edition
Freedom, Massachusetts. By 1973, thirty-year-old Connie Lewis sees only irony in the name. She’s ready to leave her hometown and move with her recently widowed mother to Florida, freed of financial worry to write the novel that’s been languishing in her imagination. The novel’s title--Secrets--turns out to be as ironic as the name of her hometown. Her mother, her sister, and the man she befriends in Florida all keep secrets. In a nine-year journey that will take her from Massachusetts to Florida to Oregon, Connie tries to discover ways to make peace with what she has learned and to decide what place she should call home.
334 pages, Paperback
Published June 14, 2023
About the author
Sharon L. Dean
19 books30 followersSharon L. Dean grew up in Massachusetts where she was immersed in the literature of New England. She earned undergraduate and graduate degrees at the University of New Hampshire, a state she lived and taught in before moving to Oregon. Although she has given up writing scholarly books that require footnotes, she incorporates much of her academic research as background in her mysteries. She is the author of three Susan Warner mysteries and three Deborah Strong mysteries. Her collection Six Old Women and Other Stories explores settings in New Hampshire. Leaving Freedom has been re-released in June 2023 along with a sequel, Finding Freedom. Dean continues to write about New England while she is discovering the beauty of the West.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
June 25, 2023
From my perspective, I would rate this reading experience 3.5 stars but prefer to come down on the more positive side. It is certainly an interesting story. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
My problem is with the writing style. As in music composition, effective writing includes rising and falling tension. Unfortunately, what we have here is a story with a single beat from beginning to end. Most sentences follow a subject-verb pattern that would benefit from an occasional descriptive clause coming first.
Another issue comes from red herrings that never develop, as the incident centering on the discussion of the two friends not locking their car. I expected something would then happen as a result of leaving the car unlocked, but the subject never reappeared.
On a larger scale, I really thought the confrontation with the cult leader would be more dramatic, but that too sort of fizzled.
All that being said, I do care enough about the characters to want to read the sequel. Is that a commentary on me or the author?
My problem is with the writing style. As in music composition, effective writing includes rising and falling tension. Unfortunately, what we have here is a story with a single beat from beginning to end. Most sentences follow a subject-verb pattern that would benefit from an occasional descriptive clause coming first.
Another issue comes from red herrings that never develop, as the incident centering on the discussion of the two friends not locking their car. I expected something would then happen as a result of leaving the car unlocked, but the subject never reappeared.
On a larger scale, I really thought the confrontation with the cult leader would be more dramatic, but that too sort of fizzled.
All that being said, I do care enough about the characters to want to read the sequel. Is that a commentary on me or the author?
Displaying 1 of 1 review