The Darkest Secret

A Novel

By: Alex Marwood

Narrated by: Beverley A. Crick

Length: 12 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's summary

Real estate mogul Sean Jackson is throwing himself a splashy 50th birthday party, but trouble starts almost immediately: His ex-wife has sent his teenage daughters to the party without telling him; his current wife has fired the nanny; and he's finding it difficult to sneak away to his mistress. Then something truly terrible happens: one of his three-year-old twins goes missing. No trace of her is ever found. The attendees of the party, nicknamed the Jackson Associates by the press, become infamous overnight. Twelve years later, Sean is dead. The Jackson Associates assemble for the funeral, together for the first time since that fateful weekend. Soon the barbed comments and accusations are flying. By the end of the weekend, one will be dead. And one of Sean's daughters will make a shocking discovery.

©2016 Alex Marwood (P)2016 Tantor

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If I say anything it will ruin the fun. Just read it!!! It is well worth it

12 hours I can't get back

What a SLOW start to a predictable, boring, drawn out story. I only kept listening in hopes that it would pick up & something would happen to make my time invested worthwhile. I was extremely disappointed. The narrator annoyed me on top of it all. I would look elsewhere for a book to listen to.

Surprisingly satisfying!

Any additional comments?

First I wasn't familiar with the narrator Beverley A. Crick, she did an outstanding job with the various characters' voices and I will definitely listen to her again. The book overall kept me interested although I thought some of the characters could have been fleshed out a little more. I went into the listen thinking I knew what to expect, i.e. your typical "missing child" mystery ...boy was I wrong, there was lot more going on here and that made the listen interesting. With lots of twists and turns right up to the end, I gave it 4 stars and will look for more from this author.

The darkest secret

Way to slow but powered thru till the end. Should have just skipped to the end.

Great writing....dark humor and tragic at the same time

Love the snarky, the cynical narration. The narrator nailed the feel of the book. The dark, yet comical absurdity of it all.
I felt a range of emotions reading this book. Empathy, anger , frustration, and I was completely entertained. I guess it’s my type book. It may not suit everyone, but it hit the mark for me. A bunch of insipid, self centered, shallow characters getting raked over the coals is just what the Dr. ordered.;-)

Slow start, then very good but hard to follow...

A little slow for the first half then it picks up and gets pretty interesting. You have to be fully attentive when listening (don't be browsing Facebook and such) because there are tons of characters and it can get a bit challenging to keep them all straight. But overall, I really liked it and would recommend it.

English soap opera..eh?

Fun listen, twisted in a soap type way. Parts are believable others parts, not so much. Characters are believable and I even know a few in real life who fits the bills of them however the ending although deliciously fun lacks the shock and awe.

very good.

It was very in gauging , and the English accent was present to the ear.

What was the point??

The only reason I gave this book a third star instead of just two is because of the in depth character development.
The characters were so detailed, and the narration so spot-on, it's a shame that I didn't like any of the people and that the story seemed so pointless.
There isn't a single character I will miss and I don't even think I could give a spoiler, because there really isnt anything to spoil.
This was more than 12 hours of whiny people with almost no redeeming qualities and no twists and turns to speak of.
I think I only finished it because I spent the entire book thinking something interesting was coming . I absolutely can not recommended that you waste a credit or your time with this one.

Hard to follow at first

Any additional comments?

This book was hard to follow at first.... well, actually through most of the book I found myself guessing who was who. The book seemed to just shoot names at you without any character building. Once I got past the guessing game of who is who, I enjoyed listening to the story. I think it was pretty predictable and didn't have that suspenseful twist I was hoping for. I thought about listening to it again to see if I would enjoy the book more since I now know the characters. Not horrible, just okay for me.