Our Little Secret: A Novel

By Roz Nay

THE INTERNATIONALLY BESTSELLING PSYCHOLOGICAL SUSPENSE NOVEL YOU CAN'T MISS...

“A cracking read...Our Little Secret builds to a deliciously dark conclusion.” —Ruth Ware, New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in Cabin 10

Roz Nay's Our Little Secret is a twisted tale of love, pain, and revenge that will stay with the reader long after they turn the last page.

They say you never forget your first love. What they don’t say though, is that sometimes your first love won’t forget you…

Angela Petitjean sits in a cold, dull room. The police have been interrogating her for hours, asking about Saskia Parker. She’s the wife of Angela’s high school sweetheart, HP, and the mother of his child. She has vanished. Homicide Detective J. Novak believes Angela knows what happened to Saskia. He wants the truth, and he wants it now.

But Angela has a different story to tell. It began more than a decade ago when she and HP met in high school in Cove, Vermont. She was an awkward, shy teenager. He was a popular athlete. They became friends, fell in love, and dated senior year. Everything changed when Angela went to college. When time and distance separated them. When Saskia entered the picture.

That was eight years ago. HP foolishly married a drama queen and Angela moved on with her life. Whatever marital rift caused Saskia to leave her husband has nothing to do with Angela. Nothing at all. Detective Novak needs to stop asking questions and listen to what Angela is telling him. And once he understands everything, he’ll have the truth he so desperately wants…

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Apr 17, 2018
• ISBN: 9781250160829

Roz Nay

Roz Nay is a bestselling author whose debut novel won the Douglas Kennedy Prize for best foreign thriller in France and was nominated for the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize for Mystery and the Arthur Ellis Best First Novel Award. Having lived and worked in Africa, Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom, she now lives with her husband and two children in Canada.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

I’ve been in the police station all morning while they ask me questions about Saskia. Every hour the cops come to me, one after another, with a new pad of paper and a full cup of coffee. They must pass off the same brain at the door when they leave, hand it over like an Olympic baton, because not one of them strays from the script. Do you know the woman well? Can you speculate on where she’s gone? Are you upset? Angry? How do you feel about Mr. Parker? Would you consider your relationship with him to be particularly … close? Always a pause before the adjective.

That’s the thing: They sound like they’re asking about Saskia, but all roads lead to Mr. Parker and me. The police want to know if I’m in love with him, and they ask it like it’s the simplest explanation rather than the most complicated. My definition of love is nothing like theirs, though. Language can’t link us anymore: Somewhere along the way, the important words got emptied and dulled, bandied around until they lost all electricity. Honestly, I don’t think they know what they’re asking.

Mr. Parker. It’s funny to hear his name that way; to me he’s HP and he always will be. For the hours I’ve sat in this room with cold-faced interviewers who don’t know me, it’s him I miss the most. I’ve done nothing wrong and until I know what’s happened, I’m saying nothing. Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye, I’d tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but it’s like they’re trying to solve a puzzle by fixating on one piece, as if it might change shape for them if they prod at it for long enough with their chimpy thumbs. They sit with their heads down, anticipating my answers and writing them in before the words are even mine. I wonder if it matters what I tell them.

The walls in this room merge with the floors in a sheen of polish: you can’t tell where each one ends and another begins. It’s as if no living creature ever spent time in here. The sole sign of humanity is on the wall to my left: one small line of graffiti written in fervent black capitals. THE URGE TO DESTROY IS CREATIVE. I’ve looked at it all morning, and it makes me worry about who sat here before me and what they were up to.

The only furniture in the room is a chrome table with four chairs, all the legs stubbed with rubber to avoid scarring the floor. Above the door a clock with a beige face judders its long hand through the seconds. In the top left corner is a video camera. The red light winks at me. There’s one window up high to my right, but the glass doesn’t open. The long, thin pane glints like a reptile tank in a pet store. The police station parking lot must be out there. I often hear car doors banging.

There are other interview rooms on this corridor—I’m sure of it, because the air sucks in like a gasp every time the police officers open a door. Who’s being questioned in those rooms? I can’t be the only one they’ve brought in.

At noon they send in a fresh recruit. This one is dressed in a suit with a name badge clipped on his right pocket.

Hello, Angela. J. Novak studies the clipboard on his lap.

He writes the time in twenty-four-hour digits and fills out his name on the dotted line. J for James? John? Jekyll? He’s shaved his sideburns so that his hair cuts a strange line over the tops of his ears.

How are you feeling this morning? He clears his throat, and his Adam’s apple bobs. I’m Detective Novak. I’ve been asked to take the lead because I specialize in homicide cases. He exhales, an apology for his talents. Here, I brought you water and food. He holds out a generic bottle of water and two granola bars. When I don’t respond, he places them gently on the table. Look, we really need you to talk to us, to help us find Saskia. If you could just fill in the blanks, we can close your file. Detective Novak’s pen drums against the clipboard in a measured pulse. The pen lid is chewed into a dented peak.

I have a question. My voice bounces around the vinyl walls. Novak’s dark eyebrows shoot up.

Fire away, he says, like we’re just hanging out over lattes.

"Do you really want to know what happened?" My voice is a tiny husk. It’s the only question anyone should ever need to ask.

Novak smiles, a tight line on his lips, and pulls the sleeves of his jacket lower to cover his shirt cuffs. He puts both palms flat on each side of his paper, the pen horizontal at the top like a spoon at a place setting. He is waiting to be fed.

CHAPTER TWO

My mother always taught me not to ask questions you don’t want answers to. Mind your manners, Angela. You’re so nosy, so grabby. You’re so needy; have I taught you nothing about being a lady? Twenty years I lived with my parents and we never really talked about anything. We were just moles fumbling along in the same dark tunnel.

These days when all three of us meet, we blink at each other in the bright surprise of my adulthood and flounder for a point of reference. But if I think about it now, maybe my mother was right. In among all her competitive disapproval lay a gristly knuckle of truth: Don’t ask what you don’t want to know.

Detective Novak, I don’t trust your curiosity.

I prod my forefinger on the chrome of the table, leaving a smeared fingerprint. I’ll tell you all I can, on two conditions.

He waits.

I know Saskia. I know what she’s like. Is it really true she’s been missing since last night?

He nods.

I want to know why you think it’s a homicide case. She might have just wandered off. Maybe she flew back to wherever she came from.

He pauses, frowning. At this point we’re considering all possibilities.

Good, because you shouldn’t rule anything out. You don’t know what people are capable of.

That one he writes down. I wait for him to finish, the full stop at the end of his line carefully pressed. He lifts his head. What’s your other condition?

My what?

You said there were two conditions.

Oh, I don’t want to talk about Saskia the whole time.

Novak’s teeth are flat at the front, four of them in a row. She’s kind of the main event.

A black thread dangles from the hem of my shirt. I coil it around and around my forefinger until the skin at the tip shrieks purple. I’m sorry to break it to you, Detective, but the story I have for you isn’t really about her. There’s a skill to finding where a tale truly begins, and trust me, there was action long before there was Saskia. I yank the thread free, roll it into a tiny ball and launch it to the floor.

Start wherever you like, Angela. I’m a captive audience.

We study each other.

Am I a suspect, Detective Novak?

He uncrosses and crosses his long legs. Like I say, the investigation’s ongoing. At this stage we’re just filling in the blanks. We don’t know for sure what we’re looking at. And you’re helping us form a… He cups his hands as if around clay. … a clearer picture.

I doubt I can help. I know HP more than I do Saskia, and most of what I can tell you is a decade old.

His mouth smiles but his eyes don’t. Just tell me what you know.

I shrug. Okay, here we go.

*   *   *

So, Detective Novak, can we talk about me for a change? In my experience, it’s not a subject that gets much discourse, and I have a lot to say. It might even end up being cathartic. Thank you—I’ll take it from that slight incline of your head that you’ll let me off-load for a while, whether or not you have a choice.

Let’s go way back and begin with how my parents moved a lot. My mom and dad bonded over their restlessness and rushed to get married in it. They met as college actors in a play, although they were never skilled enough to get agents or turn pro once they’d gotten out of school. My mom had aspirations of grandeur, I’m sure: She was from a rich family and Dad was from a clever one, and at the time my dad might have been landing the leading roles—perhaps that’s why she chose him. But that was while they were seniors at Yale, and the drama society can’t have had a vast pool of talent. Nothing ever came of his stardom when they graduated, and I’m not sure that even bothered him. He didn’t need fame—he needed academic challenge, so there were other, deeper disappointments stacking up for him. Still, once they’d married and had me we were up and moving every three years as if life was a grand stage production they thought they were touring, although by then my dad had stumbled into arts management and ditched all the celebrity of an actor on stage. My mother wasn’t as quick to surrender. While she took on the role of the docile housewife, glamour rasped at her throat like thirst. There was nothing about her life that quenched her. She grew drier and more desperate year by year. One of my earliest memories is of being four, maybe, and in the middle of cutting out a picture of a turkey from the grocery store coupons. My fat little hands were squashed right into the scissor handles, cutting in a curve, when my mom started jangling her keys next to my head and telling me we had to go, right now, baby, out the door, let’s go. Right now, leave that, just leave it. She yanked the scissors out of my hand and stood over me while I struggled to find my shoes.

I went through my whole childhood like that. Ready to be yanked away.

The moves were career related for my father—he’s always been a man with one eye on the success ladder, although if you ask me he must have been climbing the rungs in his slipperiest socks. Ad astra per aspera, Angela—to the stars the hard way. It was tiring watching him. Still, my mother was happy to accompany him as long as each step felt like a social climb. There was a giddiness to their choices in those early years, a strange excitement. Darling, just imagine! Each time they left a place, my parents must have believed they were on their way to somewhere they might actually be happy.

Moving when you’re fifteen is terrifying. It’s not fun, it’s not an adventure, it’s not a wild ride to wonderful things, baby. In ninth grade I said goodbye to my friends and watched them fade away from me even while I was still standing there. When people get older, they’re supposed to cope better with separation, but I don’t know whether that’s true. Are we honestly meant to believe the important ones will stay with us wherever we go?

We drove three hours northwest to Cove, Vermont, in the fall just as tenth grade began. You probably love this town to death and all, Detective Novak, you’re probably New England born and bred; but I’ve got to tell you, the first time we drove down Main and Oak Streets it looked like we’d arrived in the sister town of somewhere more exciting, the kind of place you move to because the housing’s cheaper. Sure, Vermont is all covered bridges and maple candy shops, and life is like the lid of a Christmas cake tin, but when we drove into Cove’s town center, there was a hardware store, a scattering of bars with faded HAPPY HOUR banners over their doorways, and a Frostee Delite with a hand-scrawled sign in the front window that read GET YOU’RE POPSICLES NEXT JULY, YOUR AMAZING—I swore I’d never eat there. The town’s curling rink looked like a Cold War bomb shelter from the outside, and the riveted metal of the roof clanged with raindrops as we drove by with the car windows down.

The house we bought was sad and gray and looked hunched, like it was coughing. There was a shoe in the driveway. In the middle of the front lawn was an iron stake driven deep into the dirt, with a rusted chain on the grass.

Dog owners. My mother shuddered to my father. David, we’ll need a commercial cleaner.

Do you like living in a town of only four thousand people, Detective Novak? Isn’t it a cozy little community, the lights of the townsfolk twinkling around Cove Lake? Dad knew and liked the principal of the high school and felt the move to a smaller place would somehow benefit my chances of getting into a good college. It’s all about class sizes, my dear. Teacher-student ratio. Let’s shoot for the Ivy Leagues. He took a job at the Cove Municipal Library, giving up his research post at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston because he had become obsessed with my education. Either he’d lost the trail of his own success and was now starting to sniff out mine, or else he was trying to relive his glorious Yale days where he aced his Classical Civilization class and spent heady afternoons reading The Iliad under the shade of the maples. He wanted a second run at Yale himself, another pass at a more rigorous, elitist trajectory upon exit. I never wanted to leave Boston. Small towns are a soap opera: You’re either acting or you’re watching.

I went to Lakeside High, although I’m sure you already know that. It was a flat-roofed brick building with basketball hoops out front that had long ago lost their netting. The first day in that school my palms smelled tinny and sour from gripping the iron handrails that led up to the front entrance. The locker they gave me still had stickers in it from the kid before—rainbows that were plastic and puffy and crinkled when you pressed them. I pried them all off with my thumbnail.

At every school I attended, gym teachers sighed when they saw me coming, and Lakeside High was no different. I’ve never been one for chasing a ball around, could never see the purpose of it. Perhaps I’m not much of a team player. At the end of gym on that first Monday, I went to change back into my regular clothes and there were knots in the ends of my pants, pulled so tight that two people must have put their full weight into the job. I couldn’t tease the knots apart. By the time I sat down in defeat, the locker room had emptied.

Angela, is it? The teacher came in with her class list clasped to her rock-hard chest. Angela Petitjean? She said it like this—pettitt-gene—without any flow of French to it, no lyrical peh-ti-shon. Not much of a linguist. What’s happening here? She wore a polo shirt with all the buttons done up, and her bangs were hair-sprayed to one side. Who did this? Holy smokes, they put some effort into it. As she spoke, she grunted and ground her fingers into the knots, easing them loose. Okay—here. Now, pick up the pace! You’ll be late to your next class.

My pants had a crimped hemline for the rest of the day, like an ’80s disco look. I knew who did it; I knew right away because two girls followed me down the hallway laughing when I emerged from the gym. And they were everywhere: waiting outside the bathroom, behind me in the line for lunch, and three lockers down, leaning against the wall while I tried to get my books organized for English class. The taller one wore dark-purple nail polish and a T-shirt that showed her belly button. Pierced. The other girl dressed identically, even down to the love-heart laces in her sneakers. What is it about teenage girls that make them impossible to tell apart? I thought it was all in the styling, the makeup, the cloning of boy-band music and favorite movies. Now I realize what bonds and homogenizes them:

Reviews for Our Little Secret

[icolford · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Roz Nay’s suspense thriller Our Little Secret begins with Angela Petitjean in a police interrogation room being questioned by a homicide detective named Novak. Someone named Saskia is missing, and Angela is a prime suspect. But who is Saskia? And, more importantly, who is Angela and why has she become the focus of Novak’s investigation? Angela narrates her own story, answering these questions and more, starting with a childhood spent moving from town to town to accommodate her father’s work. Finally, the family settles in Cove, Vermont, for Angela’s high school years. This is where she meets Hamish Parker, who goes by HP. The two become devoted friends and, just in time for graduation, lovers. Highly protective of each other, Angela and HP spend much of their time in each other’s company and with each other’s families. Then real life intrudes. Angela reluctantly heads off to Oxford, England, for college. HP stays in Cove and works at various things. A pivotal moment in Angela's narrative occurs while Angela is in England. HP visits, and at a dance he meets Saskia, an Australian snowboarder: tanned, blonde and fit. Angela has also met someone, a student named Freddy, who becomes a close friend and confidante, though not a lover (not for lack of trying on his part). Needless to say, Saskia's presence causes friction between Angela and HP, and after everyone relocates back to the US, it all goes sideways for Angela, and HP ends up married to Saskia. To give away more of the plot would be unfair but suffice to say that before the midpoint of the novel we begin to suspect that we can’t take everything that Angela tells us at face value. Our Little Secret holds the reader’s attention, mostly by keeping us in the dark about characters' motivations. Angela is an engaging if not particularly endearing narrator: cocky and abrasively over-confident at the outset, but near the end snivelling and despairing. By her own account she lacks self-control, acting impulsively, with little regard for consequences. Worryingly, she is often her own worst enemy. Central to the story is her unwillingness or inability to let go of the conviction that she and HP are "soul-mates" who belong together. But as the story unfolds our sympathies become seriously divided. How can we cheer her on when her obsession with HP has grown so unattractive? In the final pages the narrative seems to unravel, and we're left wondering somewhat uncomfortably if anyone in this story gets what they truly deserve.

[susan.macura · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

We meet Angela Petitjean aka "LIttle John" in the local police station as she is describing her relationship with a missing woman, who happens to be the wife of her first and only love. While the police are conducting an investigation into the whereabouts of the missing woman, we are taken back in time through Angela's stories to how she and HP met in school, became best friends, fell in love, had a relationship that ultimately ended when HP met and then married Saskia, the missing woman. However, that was not the end of Little John and HP, and as strange as it seems, it was acceptable to Saskia until it wasn't. There are some very interesting twists in this tale that proves obsession is not love.

[bhowell_35 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

a promising first novel and a good escapist read for summer

[nyiper · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I sort of began to wonder about 3/4 of the way through this cleverly written novel----and what a little secret there was to be discovered...by the reader. I thought I knew where things were heading but somehow things shifted and I must admit, I was surprised with what happened.

[debbiesbooknook · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

My Takeaway

“The detective wants to know what happened to Saskia as if I could just skip to the ending and all would be well. But stories begin at the beginning and some secrets have to be earned”.
Our Little Secret

Our Little Secret, is twisted, unexpected and clever. Once I began reading, I did not want to put it down. The characters in this thriller are complex and at times quite eccentric (with a splash of cuckoo). The narrator and protagonist, Angela, is intelligent, a bit over the top, and obsessive — not a good combination. I agree with some readers, a few of the events are a bit farfetched, but in this case, I feel it works. I finished the book a few nights ago, yet I’m still thinking about the book’s abrupt ending. I believe it was Nay’s intention to throw me off and confuse the crap out of me (she gets extra points for it). I read this novel super-fast and I think this is the best way to capture the essence and spin of the story. This is Nay’s debut novel, but I can’t wait to read additional work from this promising new voice.

[bookczuk · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Finally, finally, FINALLY was able to get to the library (first time since I broke myself in February, though I've been a regular visitor to the online catalog for ebooks) and headed straight for the new books section as is my habit. I ended up taking several books, each from a different genre. This was my choice for suspense/thriller/mystery, and it was a good one. I liked the way the story unfolded, even if I couldn't exactly become fond of any of the characters (though I did feel incredibly sad for pretty much all of them.) That's probably the main reason I didn't round up from 3.5 stars-- for 4 stars, I'd like to at least feel good about one character. I wonder what other secrets the villain was keeping hidden away.

[bonnie.franks · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I won this book and I am so glad I did!You can read what the book is about in the synopsis, so I won't waste your time repeating it here.I knew by the end of page one that I was going to enjoy this book, I just didn't realize how much. I first fell in love with the writing itself. Roz Nay has a wonderful way of turning a phrase. That alone would have kept me reading, but along the way I starting falling in love with the characters. I felt that I was sitting across from them watching them interact at times. I even enjoy that the bad guys, if there are any, are legitimate as well. I was suspicious at various points, convinced at others, horribly sad at times, and deeply touched at others. This book has it all. I will read it again and recommend it to everyone! Don't hesitate....go get it now!

[sharn_3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was a pretty easy read. It wasn't over the top suspense, mainly a mystery but it held my attention. Felt a little YA to meAngela (LJ) sat detained while she told her story to Novak, the detective on the missing persons case of her ex-boyfriend's wife.What happens to a person that is unable to let go of the past?

[whisper1_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

What a remarkable page turning first book for this author. When a local detective places Angela in a room and grills her for 16 hours, the story she tales is quite remarkable. Highly intelligent, Angela truly believes she is in charge of the situation during the entire inquisition.Her high school love surprisingly left her for an Australian lady he met while visiting Angela in England. Wanting to escape the backwoods of rural Vermont, Angela decided to go to Oxford for a term or two. While longing for her first and only love, HP, she leads Freddy, a very rich young man, on a string. Returning back to Vermont, it is most difficult for Angela to see HP's pregnant wife.Angela's story is a complex one in which she portrays herself as the victim. HP's wife is dead; her body is found at the bottom of a local lake. She leaves behind HP and their darling five-year old daughter. Before her disappearance, for a few years, HP and Saskia encouraged Angela to stay with them in their beautiful house on the lake.Why a current wife and her husband would cultivate a continued relationship with Angela is strange in deed. However, when Angela shows her true colors, she is told to leave. What a surprise to her -- she thought she could manipulate the situation so that she could go back in time and continue the intense relationship she had with HP. Continuing to led Freddy along, while obsessing about HP, Angela's sociopathic mother and Freddy play a major role in the ending. Tragic, sad and compelling, I read this in one sitting. This is quite an intense psychological thriller!!

[juliew121 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Received this an ARC - well-written, easy read. Held my interest through the entire book - ending was a little disappointing but over all a good read!

[barb_h_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book was a wild ride! I devoured it over the course of a 24 hour period, reading it every chance I got. I'd definitely call this suspenseful book a page-turner. I will be on the look out for future books by this author. It's a gripping, psychological thriller. Fans of that genre should enjoy this and I do recommend giving it a read.I did receive an Advanced Reader edition from the publisher, St. Martin's Press.#ShareOurSecret

[martinhughharvey_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Finished a weight read so gave this a try.New author and a quick and compelling read that you don't like to put down. Nothing complex in terms of switching people, times, and other stuff you need to stay on your toes about. It's an unusual premise - essentially a woman goes missing and another woman is brought in for questioning, and she's 'different', and she basically tells the detective her life story! Twist at the end and unsure what the end was. Enjoyable.

[bah195 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I'm having a very hard time trying to figure out what to say about this book. One of the blurbs on the back states "this thriller is an intense cat and mouse game of lies". I must have been reading a different book because this is not a thriller.I never connected with the characters.

[bookofsecrets · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

A woman is questioned by police after her ex-boyfriend’s wife disappears. Lots of great reviews for this book, but unfortunately it wasn’t for me. The story lacked suspense, and the characters didn’t grab my attention. I usually enjoy unlikable or unreliable characters, but not so much this time. I couldn’t understand the reasoning behind many things the characters did or said. Maybe if I was clearer about who the “our” was in the title, and also which “little secret” it’s referring to. I liked the final twist though.

[joweirqt · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

The story grabbed my attention from the first page but there were some annoying errors throughout:

* Ivy League is a group of premium American universities. Oxford is in England and has nothing to do with the American group.

* And, having lived with the family for a period of time, how could the main character not have yet worked out where plates lived and what the towels looked like?

* Why did she spill her guts to the police officer without a lawyer present? Why did the police not caution her before she did so? Nothing of what she said up until being charged could be used in court.

* The "Australian" character used mainly New Zealand expressions in her dialogue. I'm sure any Australians who read this will be a bit confused.

I can't think of when a New Zealand pinot noir producer last used corks in their wine.

Some better research and editing may have helped but the whole story is just a waste of time when you read the ending. How annoying.

[rmarcin-630843 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I really liked this book. It was told by Angela Petitjean, aka LJ, to a detective. The detective is investigating what happened to Saskia. It is a mesmerizing tale, you are drawn into hearing the story of LJ's friendship with HP, and their intertwined lives over the next several years.

[carol420 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Young love… first love, sets the stage for this author’s debut novel. The story goes to show that we may not always know people as well as we think we do...what they are really capable of…and to what ends an entire town would go to protect them. If you are an avid true crime fan you will really enjoy this book.

[vickimarie2002 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I think this was a fairly good book, kind of a thriller but not as intense as I'd hoped. The love triangle between LJ, HP and Saskia was pretty messy and I really enjoyed it. You really feel sorry for lots of the characters and really gets you thinking. I also felt dislike for many of the same characters.

I did like the narrative of LJ telling the whole story in the time she was in the interrogation room.

Thanks to St. Martin's Press for sending me this early readers edition in exchange for my honest review.