She was thinking
about what Joe had said: that you belong where you want to be She had a feeling that somehow home had shifted for
her. It was not just the flat above the café in the middle of London.
Every family has its secrets, and its reasons for keeping quiet about them. But sometimes there are too many unanswered questions.
Kate lives with her mother, Anne, above a café in London. For her the past is a closed door. Anne never talks about her family, or about Kate’s father, or even why she left Ireland so suddenly. Whenever Kate asks her a question she just changes the subject.
Then one day at the beginning of the Summer holidays a letter arrives with the news that Kate’s grandmother is critically ill. Now Kate and her mother have to make a journey to a remote village in the West of Ireland to see her.
It’s not a journey Kate wants to make. Her grandmother has never bothered about her so why should Kate care about an old woman she’s never even met?
And yet when she arrives in Ireland everything begins to change. Surrounded by a wild and beautiful countryside, she discovers not just who she is but also who she wants to be.
Orchard, ISBN 1841215309
"Family Secrets is a wonderfully moving voyage of teenage discovery, emotionally charged and powerfully atmospheric."