Start Reading The Secrets Between Us Devised By Laura Madeleine Provided As Printable Format

story is set between two different times, Annie in England inand Ceci Corvin inhigh in the mountains in the South of France.


The chapters flow between Annie and CiCi, each living different lives, Most of CiCis story is set in the past when she was a young woman living in SaintAntoine working in the family bakery.
But with the arrival of hundreds of jews and other foreigners being brought to SaintAntoine her life changes forever.


Annie hasnt seen or heard off her grandmother for years, an argument between Annies mum and her grandmother caused a rift in the family and they have never seen CiCi since that day.
Annies mum has been unwell and made her realise life can be fragile and short, so she made the decision that she would like to try to find her mother and heal the past.
Its not long until Annie finds her and it is from there the story really picks up,

Annie wants answers about her own past, who her grandfather was, why her Grandmother left such a beautiful place for Paris and London.
She knows there are reasons but they have always been a secret only her grandmother knows,

Now that CiCi is an old woman and is not in the best of health herself she is over the moon at being reunited with her granddaughter but she also knows she needs to open old scars and finally share her secrets.
She wants to go back to where it all started for her SaintAntoine, but not alone, So both women leave Paris and begin a journey that will stay with them forever!

It is so beautifully written that your imagination comes to life, the setting of SaintAntoine is easy to envisage and you can almost smell the freshly baked bread alongside CiCi.


It is a story about a forbidden love, family, trust, unlikely friendships, heartbreak, the uncertainty of war and of hope!

The closing chapter felt like a sucker punch in the chest from Conor McGregor hahaha, it made my chest constrict and my heart swell, in a good way of course! Beautiful and packed with emotion.
The women are crafted flawlessly, so real and easy to like that their emotions flow off the pages and into mine! Even my Ice maiden heart felt its heartstrings being pulled!

I could not have found a more perfect book to endon!

If you are a fan of Kate Morton then this is a MUST read, you will fall in love with The Secrets between us.


This is the first book you should read in!

Would I recommend this book Hell Yeah! A million !

The Secrets between us was published todayst Januaryand can be purchased right now from

Amazon UK for the bargain price ofp ebook! So go grab your copy quick whilst this amazing offer lasts!

Happy reading and Happy New Year
Welcome to
The Secrets Between Us is the third book from Laura Madeleine and my god what a read this turned out to be.
I read Where the Wild Cherries Grow last year and still have The Confectioner's Tale on my TBR but with this new read Laura has certainly confirmed what a brilliant author she is.
Initially while reading this book I had similar feelings as to when I was reading Where the Wild Cherries grow.
Those being that this was an OK read with nothing much to set it apart from most of the historical fiction I love to read.
Then bang there was that pivotal moment, that point where all my opinions changed and this book turned from a nice enough read to a completely, unputdownable book that I tore through the pages to discover the ending.


I think that's what this author does, well in my experience of reading her books this is what I think happens.
She lures you in with lots and lots of descriptions of the characters and scenery, the setting is explored and to me not much really happens.
The story appears to be ambling along and you are waiting and waiting for something explosive, that twist that makes you sit up and take notice to occur.
You are wondering is this it Will anything ever happen Then all of a sudden with a few simple words or one crucial chapter everything is turned on its head and you think wow this is excellent and really all the chapters that had gone before it were so worth it.
They were essential to the plot, The Secrets Between Us was my first read ofand I flew through it in a couple of hours so compulsive did the tell unfolding before my eyes become.


The story moves back and forth between Ceci Corvin living high up in the French mountains near to the Italian border in.
The war is at its height and the little village of Saint Antoine may seem like a refuge for some but outside forces make their mark ever known.
In April ofAnnie Picot works in a library, She lives in London but is now in Cheshire working on a job cataloguing government documents so that they are all online.
This is top secret work and Annie is at the lowest levels of the operation, Will her personal story and that of the distance between her mother and grandmother make her do something which could threaten her job I loved how the story effortlessly moved back and forth over theyear time period.
The chapters from Annie's viewpoint were short and to the point the further we moved into the story as if the author knew the reader wanted to get back toto learn more about an incredible love story at a time of such cruelty, hardship and horror.
Not that I didn't enjoy the sections from, I did but the story of Ceci held my interest ever so slightly more.
But Annie's story was brilliant too as it brought connections and secrets to the fore and the more she uncovered and learned about a time many wanted forgotten the more I was keen to see how all the strands of the story may eventually come together.


Laura Madeleine's talents lie in her descriptive abilities, She has such a way with words that I could clearly picture the narrow cobbled streets of Saint Antoine with its array of houses and some small shops.
It seemed like another worldly place where the residents try to put the ravages of war to the back of their mind believing that they could be safe and cocooned.
The village surrounded by mountains appeared as if cut off from the rest of the world bar the ratting bus that came every so often if one had business to deal with in Nice.
What is also clear is that food and in this case the bakery plays an important role in all of the authors books.
Despite the rationing and food shortages Ceci and her family run the local bakery as best they can, The descriptions of the process of bread making, rising early in the morning to bake everything to supply the town even though they had such limited resources were wonderful and throughout the book food continued to play a vital role.
Bread, salt, life and love are all elements very important to Ceci, I sensed Ceci had led a good life before the outbreak of war but now everything has changed, A state of constant alert is one in which she and her family have become very accustomed to, It has become the norm but this shouldn't be the case, Ceci's brother Leon has vanished and the family wonder has he become involved with the milice But the arrival of Jewish refugees is the turning point at which Ceci's life begins to change once again.


With the influx of new refugees all the feelings Ceci experiences of fear, uncertainty, secrets and danger only grow more prominent.
I had never heard of Jews being accommodated in small towns like this during the war but it became apparent this was during the Italian occupation of France and before the fall of Mussolini and then the Germans took over.
I am glad such detail has been brought to light in a historical fiction book, The whole topic of men, women and children being forced to leave everything they had ever known was dealt with such sensitivity and tact.
Up until this point and for quite some more of the book I felt there wasn't much happening, in fact there seemed to be repetition of days but it is only as the I neared the last quarter I understood things had been bubbling away beneath the surface unbeknownst to the reader.


Ceci's family take in a husband and wife Daniel and Myriam Reiss, They

are given the apartment at the top of the bakery, I understood the pair must have seen such trauma and endured horrors beyond imagination but they came across as being very odd and even more secretive than they necessarily needed to be.
The were always very watchful and although Ceci tried to crack the shell they had built around them her intentions were hard to achieve.
A tentative friendship is formed with Myriam but it all seemed very strange to me, Myriam was very much an enigma throughout the book, She was mysterious and elusive and almost cast a spell over Ceci, so much so that she forgot what her role was in the family and did things that would threaten her life even more.
When certain things became apparent to the reader I thought bravo for including such a storyline as undoubtedly such things didn't just starting happen in the last/years and it added an even further realistic, human element to the overall storyline.
Ceci turned out to be an incredible young woman, way beyond her time, but the question that remains in the present why did she leave Saint Antoine so abruptly never to return even when it was safe to do so

Ceci's story inas far stronger than that of Annie in.
Annie was anti social and didn't know how to talk to and engage with people, So what she does in order to discover what made her mother and grandmother not talk or even contact each other for so many years, seems to go against the initial character of Annie that we are presented with.
Then Annie seemed to buck up and want to take matters into her own hands, she wants and needs answers before it is too late.
For someone at first portrayed as meek and subservant, one who would obey any given order, Annie certainly turned things round once she had made the decision to search for her grandmother.
I enjoyed reading of Annie trying to find her grandmother and it really did help connect the two storylines.
We saw characters transform and bit by bit the truth began to emerge, little details began to make sense and my opinions rapidly changed.
As we drew closer to the end the tension levels rose and rose and that moment came that made me realise, yes this was an outstanding book, so cleverly done.
I couldn't believe the secrets and connections that were emerging, I was trying to piece and connect everything together, I thought the ending was just perfect and so apt considering all that had gone before, I finished this book with a sigh of contentment and knew it would be a difficult story to get out of head.


The Secrets Between Us definitely leaves you with a book hangover as you contemplate what to read next and wonder can anything leave up to such a stunning read.
It was an incredible story and certainly one for the keeper shelf,
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