Public Secrets

"Brian McAvoy discovers after three years that he has a daughter, and because her mother is unstable, he takes her back home with him and his fiance, Bev. Emma is immediately accepted and loved by her father's band. Bev acts like a real mother, and soon Emma has a baby brother to help her recover from the three years she spent with her abusive mother.

But after her brother dies in a botched kidnapping, nothing is the same. Bev and Brian split and Emma is sent to boarding school. The story skips around to different times, but Emma continually meets up with Michael, the son of the detective who investigated her brother's murder.

Eventually Emma marries another rock star, who is very abusive and when she finally runs, she goes to see Michael. When she finally kills her husband in self defense, Michael comforts her, and they finally become lovers. The romance progresses, and Michael helps Emma become who she really is, and helps her reconnect with her family after all of the drama they went through. He also reopens her brother's case, but when the men who killed her brother discover Emma is remembering that night, both she and Michael are in danger."

There are many characters in this book. And I believe you will love almost everyone of them. At least I do.

It’s one of the novels that span across a number of years. Emma McAvoy, the main character in this story, grows up in the story. The book starts when she was 3 and follows her growing up till the twenties.

Her father, Brian McAvoy, a rock-and-roll star, gives her a new life so to speak. And the other members in the rock band are permanent fixtures in the story, and in Emma’s life too. I love all the members because they are so unique in their way. And because they all love Emma simply because she is Brian’s child. It really is a nice story to see the dynamics between the members themselves and how they adjust to having Emma around with them.

Roberts is able to depict a very realistic view of the 60s all through the 80s. Although I wasn’t even born in the 60s, I learnt about how the situation was like just by reading the story.

There are many relationships in this story. Brian and his 2 wives, the rock band, Emma and our male character, Michael Kesselring.

Emma and Michael meet when they are in their teens and from then on, Michael harbours a crush for Emma. Nonetheless, they live in different countries, live different lives. Until they meet again. And Emma is caught in major trouble. That is when you see all the characters in the story banding together and supporting her through the whole episode.

I’m touched by this story because you can feel the love between all of them. Emma loves the band as an innocent child does and the members love her back all the more because of her innocence. In times of trouble, Emma uses her link to all of them to pull them together, just like how all of them bond together to help her through her personal crisis.

Michael, on the other hand, is a solid 2nd-generation cop. Through a multitude of reasons, he meets Emma and rescues her time and again. Their relationship really blooms when they meet again and Emma escapes from her personal nightmare.

I’d forgotten how much I liked this story until I picked it up again. It’s pretty long, but once you get started, it gets you craving for more. And like I said, you can practically feel the love and affection of the characters for each other. It’s a story that is innocent, sweet, realistic and yet affectionate somehow. It brings you through the different time periods as the characters grow and develop and that in itself makes it a worthy read.

If you have the time to pick up one of Roberts’ novels, pick this. It’s definitely one of the best in the series.