'SUMMER OF SECRETS'
By Martina Reilly

With seven books behind her Martina Reilly is up there with the best of female writers emerging out of Ireland in recent years and her latest offering 'Summer of Secrets' will delights fans of all ages.

It focuses on the story of best friends Hope, Adam and Julie, who are thrown together in a summer of turmoil and drama and who find their friendship and relationships tested to the limit as a series of challenges and upheavals come their way.

Hope is in her early thirties and an independent career girl who has never managed to settle down either in her personal or professional life, when she heads to London on a short trip– but the unthinkable happens and the plane she is travelling in crashes. Miraculously she survives but many others die.

She is left with a barrage of emotions from survivor's guilt to anxiety about how to cope with the rest of her life and how she might have dealt with earlier experiences in a better way. Her best friends, relieved to have their friend back safe and sound, physically at least, take her under their wing and the trio return to Hope's birthplace, where she is forced to confront the demons of her past. This involves coming face-to-face with the mother she left behind years ago, the conflict that was never resolved between them, the painful death of her younger brother and a face-to-face meeting with her first love Jack who's now a successful businessman.

Hope decides to go for counselling and the reader joins on a fascinating journey of self-discovery as she rakes over the past and tries to confront her nightmares, culminating in the plane crash itself.

Martina writes beautifully and there is much to delight readers in this unputdownable read from drama, romance and comedy as well as real tear-jerking emotion. 'Summer of Secrets' is published by Sphere and is available in all good book stores.