Summer of Secrets

As in her debut, My Mother’s Shadow, Scott divides this languorous family mystery between past and present. In 1939 on England’s southern coast, 16-year-old Maddy sketches on the Summerhill estate and awaits the return of her sister, Georgiana, from the Continent. In present-day Plymouth, 28-year-old photographer Chloe is starting to realize she’s unhappy with her husband, wealthy physician Aidan, who forbids her from working. Georgiana sweeps home with a swain, Victor, whose manner with Maddy is first confusing, then frightening. Chloe tries to believe Aidan’s surveillance and control are normal but keeps putting off telling him about her pregnancy. When Chloe ducks Aidan’s veto to do a portrait shoot of elderly author Madeleine Hamilton at Summerhill, lies and secrets intersect. The well-constructed story teeters on a weak foundation—namely the mystery of how Chloe, who took charge of raising her disabled younger brother and once was the gifted apprentice of a renowned, crankily independent woman, “quickly” and “easily” “surrendered” to being a vague, yes-dear wife to a man who sees her personality as a mess to tidy away. The lack of real explanation for this gives an element of contrivance to Scott’s theme of evil men ruining women’s lives, diminishing the otherwise carefully observed story. Conversations where more is implied than said gradually build into a series of revelations that will satisfy fans of overheated interpersonal dramas. Agent: Caroline Hardman, Hardman & Swainson. (Sept.)