1959 En un caluroso dia de verano, mientras su familia se va de picnic al arroyo de su granja en Suffolk, la adolescente Laurel se esconde en la casa del arbol de su infancia, fantaseando con un muchacho llamado Billy, una huida a Londres y un futuro grandioso que aguarda con impaciencia. Sin embargo, antes de que esa tarde idilica toque a su fin, Laurel presenciara un crimen aterrador que lo cambiara todo. 2011 Siendo ya una actriz celebre, Laurel se ve abrumada por las sombras de su pasado. Acechada por los recuerdos y el misterio de lo que vio ese dia, vuelve al hogar familiar y comienza a desenmaranar cada rincon de su memoria en busca de aquella historia. Una historia de tres desconocidos procedentes de mundos muy diferentes -Dorothy, Vivien y Jimmy- que coinciden en el Londres de los anos de la Segunda Guerra Mundial y cuyas vidas quedaranunidas de forma funesta e inexorable. Alternando los anos treinta, los cincuenta y el presente, El cumpleanos secreto es un relato fascinante de misterios y secretos, teatro y farsa, de un asesinato y de un amor imperecedero. ENGLISH DESCRIPTION From the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of The Distant Hours, The Forgotten Garden, and The House at Riverton, a spellbinding new novel filled with mystery, thievery, murder, and enduring love. During a summer party at the family farm in the English countryside, sixteen-year-old Laurel Nicolson has escaped to her childhood tree house and is happily dreaming of the future. She spies a stranger coming up the long road to the farm and watches as her mother speaks to him. Before the afternoon is over, Laurel will witness a shocking crime. A crime that challenges everything she knows about her family and especially her mother, Dorothy--her vivacious, loving, nearly perfect mother. Now, fifty years later, Laurel is a successful and well-regarded actress living in London. The family is gathering at Greenacres farm for Dorothy's ninetieth birthday. Realizing that this may be her last chance, Laurel searches for answers to the questions that still haunt her from that long-ago day, answers that can only be found in Dorothy's past. Dorothy's story takes the reader from pre-WWII England through the blitz, to the '60s and beyond. It is the secret history of three strangers from vastly different worlds--Dorothy, Vivien, and Jimmy--who meet by chance in wartime London and whose lives are forever entwined. The Secret Keeper explores longings and dreams and the unexpected consequences they sometimes bring. It is an unforgettable story of lovers and friends, deception and passion that is told--in Morton's signature style--against a backdrop of events that changed the world.
