NetGalley: The Children's Secret by Nina Monroe

Published: 09/7/2021

Publisher: Crooked Lane Books

Pages: 352

Genre: Mystery/Thrillers

Review: ARC from NetGalley and Publisher

Amazon

Nothing ever happens in a sleepy town like Middlebrook. Until the residents are shaken to their core, when one hot Saturday afternoon, at a back-to-school party, nine children sneak into a barn...and only eight come out unharmed.

The press immediately starts asking questions. What type of parents let their children play unsupervised in a house with guns? What kind of child pulls the trigger on their friend? And most importantly: of the nine children who were present in that barn, which one actually pulled the trigger, and why are the others staying silent?

“I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.” 

I can say I was invested in this book. I wanted to know what truly happened that day. Kids are in a barn, and one gets shot, but how? It is a question that everyone is asking because the children are not saying a word, but why would they be so quiet? As our story unfolds, we learn why they kept the secret, and we see just how well a secret is kept can tear friends, family, and even a community apart. When I started reading, I assumed the author would push an agenda on us about guns being horrible, and they need to be banned. I am thrilled she did not. Though I did get aggravated with one character, who kept just repeating guns being kept in houses and no one should have guns. I understood her meaning behind it all, but it still bothered me.  Honestly, small towns that do a lot of hunting will have guns; it is up to the parents to have precautions to prevent accidents like shootings. We are told what is going on via different points of view, and it was easy to with. Overall the story was one you want to keep reading until you find out the ending. No one is perfect, people make mistakes, and sometimes they are deadly. This teaches that sometimes you have to learn not to listen to others when you know their idea is bad. You have to learn how to stand up and say no. 

When I was a little girl I spent hours of my time snuggled up in my mum’s big double bed, reading stories with her. As soon as she told me that there were people whose job it was to write those stories, I knew that that’s what I wanted to do.

I came to the English language late. My mother tongue is German and I lived in Germany for the first two years of my life. When I was three and four I lived on the island of Corsica where I learned to speak French and finally, aged nearly five, I moved to Oxford in England. When I realised that none of the little girls in my elementary school had a clue what I was saying, I quickly learned English.

I kept writing stories and as I got older I attended wonderful writing courses in the UK and the US. Having grown up to realise that wanting to be a full time writer might not be the most stable of career choices, I trained to teach High School English and worked in beautiful boarding schools around the UK. I still dream of writing of boarding school novel. My time as a teacher inspired my YA novels: I’m a big fan of teenagers!

Then I met my husband and he convinced me to take the plunge and to see whether I could make that little girl’s dream come true and write full time. I did an MA in creative writing, took a sabbatical from teaching, wrote my heart out, learned about the process of getting an agent and a publisher and, after a rollercoaster of ups and downs and joys and heartbreak, landed my first publishing deal.

I now write books for both adults and young adults. My latest novel, The Children’s Secret, is set in New Hampshire, in the USA, is published under my pseudonym, Nina Monroe.

I live in a pretty light blue house in Concord, New Hampshire, with my husband, our three children, four cats.