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Reviewed by Mansoor Ahmed for Readers' Favorite
The Secrets We Carry by Annette G. Anders is the first book in the Soul Sisters series that starts with warmth, depth, and real emotional intelligence. Four college friends, Rebecca, Caitlin, Ensley, and Hope, have arranged their annual girls' week at a rental house called Whispering Pines in the Berkshires. But Rebecca is missing. She has taken a detour with Devin, a magnetic, quietly mysterious man she met two and a half years ago and never quite forgot, accepting his invitation to fly with him to Buffalo on a private jet before she plans to slip away and join her friends. Each woman is carrying something heavy into that vacation week: Ensley lost her entire family in an accident the day after her baby sister was born; Hope can barely bring herself to step away from her family's nursery; Caitlin is holding her own frustrations close. But Rebecca is holding the heaviest secret of all.
Annette G. Anders writes with considerable warmth and a strong instinct for character. Each of the four women is given her own chapter and her own distinct voice from the very opening pages, which is a confident structural choice. The pace is gentle but purposeful, the kind of rhythm that suits a story about women who need a week to breathe and be honest with each other. I was particularly drawn to Ensley, whose habit of locking melancholy feelings away with the front door when she leaves the apartment is one of the most quietly devastating character details in the book. The themes of female friendship, grief carried silently, and the cost of secrets give the novel a genuine emotional weight. The Secrets We Carry is the kind of story you curl up with and finish in one sitting. This is a novel about friendship as a lifeline, and what it costs to hide the truth from the people who love you most.
