Keeper of Secrets

LoveReading4Kids Says

Underpinned by a young girl’s grief, loneliness and struggle to find peace, Sarah J. Dodd’s Keeper of Secrets is a moving, drama-driven story of nature, friendship and conservation.

Eleven-year-old Emily lost her mum fairly recently and both she and her dad are struggling without her. Dad is often short-tempered and distracted, while Emily feels alone, unable to talk to anyone about how she feels. While her vet dad has a new job in a new village to keep him busy, Emily knows no one, and the place is alien to her too, not least when she discovers that lynxes roam the fields around their new home, Badger Cottage. It turns out that the villagers are deeply divided about the wild animals - conservationists believe it’s right they are rewilded in the woods, while local farmers see them as a threat. As Emily makes friends with the children who live on a neighbouring farm, she finds herself in the middle of this conflict when she forms a deep (and secret) connection with a lynx cub that’s lost its mother.

Brimming with empathy, and likely to spark interesting debates around rewilding and conservation, this page-turner will chime with readers who are interested in nature and wildlife, and with those who’ve felt loss or loneliness. The novel’s overriding sense of hope is perhaps best encapsulated by this moving conversation between Emily and a new neighbour: “‘There are some things that can never be made right,’ Josie said, softly, ‘but I’ve found that when life takes something away, it also gives something new.’ ‘It’s not the same.’ Emily’s voice was croaky.

‘No. Not the same. Definitely different. But that doesn’t mean it can’t still be something good.’”

Joanne Owen

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