Little Secrets

By Anna Snoekstra

For fans of Gilly Macmillan's The Perfect Girl, Kate Moretti's The Vanishing Year and Anna's chilling debut novel, Only Daughter. Little Secrets examines what happens to the people in a small town when they feel threatened by an unknown danger. Full of twists and turns, this dark examination of human nature is a fast-paced thriller.

What happens when ambition trumps the truth?

A town reeling in the wake of tragedy…

An arsonist is on the loose in Colmstock, Australia, most recently burning down the town's courthouse and killing a young boy who was trapped inside.

An aspiring journalist desperate for a story…

The clock is ticking for Rose Blakey. With nothing but rejections from newspapers piling up, her job pulling beers for cops at the local tavern isn't enough to even cover rent. Rose needs a story–a big one.

A bizarre mystery…

In the weeks after the courthouse fire, porcelain replicas of Colmstock's daughters begin turning up on doorsteps, terrifying parents and testing the limits of the town's already fractured police force.

Rose may have finally found her story. But as her articles gain traction and the boundaries of her investigation blur, Colmstock is seized by a seething paranoia. Soon, no one is safe from suspicion. And when Rose's attention turns to the mysterious stranger living in the rooms behind the tavern, neighbour turns on neighbour and the darkest side of self–preservation is revealed.

'A smart and compulsive thriller that perfectly evokes the claustrophobia of small–town Australian life. I couldn't put it down!' Bestselling Australian author of The Rosie Project, Graeme Simsion

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: Nov 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9781489242266

Anna Snoekstra

Anna Snoekstra is the author of Only Daughter, Little Secrets and The Spite Game. Her novels have been published in over twenty countries and sixteen languages. She has written for The Guardian, Meanjin, Griffith Review, Lindsay,LitHub and The Saturday Paper. Her first audio drama, This Isn't Happening, is out with Audible in late 2022. Photo by Samantha Iliov

Reviews for Little Secrets

[pomo58 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In Little Secrets Anna Snoekstra shows the extremes that people will go to to leave any situation in which they feel limited, in this case a dying small town. It is easy to end up "disliking" every character in the novel but that is making things too black and white. If telling a lie or keeping a secret makes one unlikable then there is no one in the world who is likeable. So some degree of nuance and effort is needed to separate elementary categories such as like or dislike from a more empathy driven spectrum of more or less ethical acts done by people with strong desires. That said, on the level of whether I would "like" these characters if they were in my actual circle of acquaintances, probably not most of them but I would not "dislike" most of them, I would decide whether that person's weaknesses were more than I cared to deal with.The mysteries in the novel (there are more than one though the plot is driven by one in particular) are interesting and compelling. The resolutions are made clear to the reader even when they do not actually become known to the characters. The solution to the main mystery elicits sadness as much as anything else while the others may spark anything from anger to disappointment (at or in one of the characters). While I was less sympathetic toward Rose by the end I was still pulling for her to succeed in the future. I did believe that she had learned from her mistakes and her experiences which is what one hopes for in a character. I am less sure some of the other characters learned or grew from their experiences.I preferred Snoekstra's first novel, Only Daughter, to this one I still found this to be a good thoughtful read. I would recommend this to readers who like psychological suspense with the warning that it does not, during the first part of the book, move particularly fast. Just know that the slower part helps to set up the action that comes later.Reviewed from a copy made available through Goodreads First Reads.

[boudicca123 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Three and a half star rating.A small run down Australian town with an arsonist running loose and someone leaving dolls on the doorsteps where young girls live. Remind me never to visit, let alone live there as it seems to have far more than it’s fair share of weirdos and selfish, nasty people - so many in such a small place! Safe to say it’s very much on the creepy side. This story took quite a while to get going, so much so I almost gave up on it, but am glad I did persevere, to see that at least some of the characters got what they deserved. Very descriptive and you could almost feel the stickiness, the heat and paranoia coming through the pages.