The Fifth Secret

In this melodramatic tale, a young wife and mother afflicted with 30-something angst meets the Lord of the Flies somewhere near the Hundred-Acre Wood. Hines (Dora's Room) writes of a circle of childhood friends forced to come to terms with secrets from their past. The charismatic and tormented Lucien and his younger sister, Jane, the narrator, spent their childhood summers outside London at the idyllic Glory Cottage, where they fell in with three other children, all misfits for various reasons. Lucien's magnetism was such that the others revealed their most important secrets to him without demanding that he do the same. Years later, Lucien dies in an accident, having never achieved his early promise nor revealed his secret, the fifth of the title. The others have paired off and the couples gone separate ways until Jane receives a desperate call for help from one of the others. In coming to the rescue of one of the circle, she inadvertently brings to light all that had been hidden. Hines creates a magical setting and credibly portrays that strange state of mind where adult knowledge and childhood memory intersect. The complex and pivotal Lucien, however, never comes fully to life, robbing the story of much of its potential. (Oct.)