Those Secrets We Keep, by Emily Liebert

Title: Those Secrets We Keep

Author: Emily Liebert

Publisher: NAL

Date: June 2, 2015

Paperback: 336 pages

 About the Book

Three women. Three lives. Three secrets.

On the surface, Sloane has the perfect life—an adoring husband, a precocious daughter, and enough financial security to be a stay-at-home mom. Still, she can’t help but feel as though something—or someone—is missing....

Hillary has a successful career and a solid marriage. The only problem is her inability to conceive. And there’s a very specific reason why....

As the wild-child daughter of old family money, Georgina has never had to accept responsibility for anything. So when she realizes an unexpected life change could tie her down forever, she does exactly what she’s always done: escape.

When these three women unite for a three-week-long summer vacation in beautiful Lake George, New York, even with the idyllic location as their backdrop, the tensions begin to mount. And they quickly discover that no secret can be kept forever....

 My Take

At first when I started to read this story, I wasn't sure if I was going to like it. It didn't feel like it was going to give me that engaged feeling, but I was proven wrong. This isn't a story you can just read whenever. I feel like you need to dedicate time to it, and that is just what I did. While sitting on the couch with Pandora playing piano music softly in the background, I began to read Those Secrets We Keep once more and was finally taken to Lake George with three other women to experience their "secrets". That is when I realized how good the book truly is, and didn't put it down until I was finished. The author is an awesome writer/storyteller. Everything started pouring off the pages. I could see everything I was reading as though I was actually there. From the sand on the beach to the anger or love on their faces, it was all visible. 

I felt as though the author did a great job at keeping my attention. I kept reading because I wanted to see where the story was going to go. I wanted to know how the different women were going to be affected by their life choices. There were a couple of times when I had a shocked look on my face while I was reading. Sloane has a typical life, stays home with child while husband works, but something just isn't right. Hillary is a young married woman who has been having issues with conceiving. Question is, why? And last but not least is Georgina, she is the fun one who jots from place to place. But is she happy doing that or should she settle down?

The story made me think of my friends and how close some of us are. It makes you realize how important friendship is no matter how old you are and where you are in life. All three of these women were living different lives, but were able to come together and hang out. Once their secrets are revealed, you will see if it will make or break the lives they are now living.

I know I didn't tell much about the book, but I hate giving good stories away. I do feel as though everyone who has the chance should purchase this book and read it. You will not be disappointed.

About the Author

Emily Libert is the award-winning author You Knew Me When, it was published in September 2013, and When We Fall, published in September 2014. She has been featured on Today, The Rachel Ray show, and Anderson Live, and in InStyle, People Style Watch, The New York Times, The Wall Street, and the Chicago Tribune, among other national media outlets.

Emily is currently hard at work on her fifth book. She lives in West Port, Connecticut with her husband and their two sons.  

Thank you Kathleen Zrelak for the complimentary book and opportunity to review this book.

The Girls from Ames: A Story of Women & a Forty-Year Friendship, by Jeffrey Zaslow

How close are you to your closest friends? Did you meet them in college, high school, or grade school? Not many people can say they are still friends with the same people they met up with in grade school, let alone have a strong lasting bond with a group of friends for a long period of time. Most of the time when we attend a different school or even go away to college, the bond that was there, slowly dissipates. And other times when we become married we start a new life with our “new” family and we slowly see things starting to trickle away. But there are some people who can actually make it work and keep a strong bonding friendship for years and years and years. And that is what happened between Angela, Cathy, Diana, Jane, Jenny, Karen, Karla, Kelly, Marilyn, Sally and Sheila. The Girls from Ames: A Story of Women & a Forty-Year Friendship, by Jeffrey Zaslow.

Every so often, the girls from Ames get together and reminisce about the past and engage in conversation about the present. When they are together at these reunions, they feel as though they are still those young girls in the pictures that they pull out to look over. And throughout this book, we are taken on that very journey with them as they discuss how their lives began and what they went through that led up to such an incredible bonding friendship.

It all started about forty some years ago when two of the girls were born in the same hospital days after each other. Little did they realize, they would become great friends later on. Some of the girls met up in kindergarten or first grade, whereas, a couple of them were pulled in by being friends with some of the girls already a part of the group or living next to them.

As they started to mature, they began going to formals and on dates, of course, some more than others. They experienced their first concerts, parties, hair changes, first jobs and even ostracizing. After growing up some more, they headed off to college. This is where you would suspect that their friendships would start to break off, but it didn’t. They maintained a steady friendship through letters and later on emails. Marriages, kids, health scares, divorce and even deaths couldn’t keep these girls friendships from separating. And to this day, they are still just as close.

Throughout the book we also learn about the benefits of women having close friendships. There are different studies on how close friendships can lead to women living a longer happier life. Some of the research showed that people with friends tend to be a lot healthier than those who didn’t have any. Another research showed that women with strong friendships tended to have better marriages.

While reading this book I learned a lot about the benefits of having lasting friendships. It made me want to call or write my friends and thank them for being in my life. There is nothing that can replace the closeness of a friend and this book proves it. I highly recommend this as a must read.