SECRETS FROM THE PAST – Barbara Taylor Bradford
St. Martin's Press
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-63266-6
April 2013
Contemporary Romance

America, Italy, France - Present Day

Serena Stone has followed in her father's footsteps.  Now, a successful photo-journalist, Serena left her last assignment in the Middle East before it was too late and she burned out.  After her father suddenly dies, Serena decides she has finally had enough of war and the stress of seeing it happen right before her eyes as she snaps the photos the public will see in the papers.  Instead, once back home in New York, she begins to write a biography of her father's illustrious career.

When Harry, her father's business partner, asks Serena to fly to Italy and help a colleague recover from PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder), she grudgingly agrees. Luckily, Serena got away from the front lines before she cracked.  But Zachary had to be pulled away.  Now he has to be brought back to reality.  Serena is the only person he will listen to, so she braves the shouting and violence he is capable of in order to help him.

Weeks in Venice helping Zac wears on Serena.  She can't stay here, so she persuades Zac to fly to her family's home in France, where she joins her sisters, Cara and Jessica.  It is there, in Nice, where Serena discovers secrets inside her father's office, hidden inside some photographs. When Zac decides to make one last trip back to Libya, Serena agrees to go with him.  She doesn't tell Zac why, but she plans to seek out the truth of her father's long-ago indiscretion, and it might change her life forever.

Dynamic characterization and beautiful scenery is abundant as we travel through Europe, then the Middle East and back again.  All this combined makes SECRETS FROM THE PAST an epic novel. This book is a page-turner you will not want to put down! There are lots of puzzles here, beginning with Serena's movie-star mother and her acclaimed father. Her sisters appear to know a secret that they are not telling Serena, even regarding her childhood memories.  Living up to her father's successes has always been a struggle for Serena in her climb up the journalistic ladder, and now she fears that everything she once believed is all for naught.

SECRETS FROM THE PAST is full of obsession, betrayal and passion as we travel the world in Serena's quest for the truth.

Diana Risso