All My Secrets

Sophie McKenzie has run the gamut of almost every literary genre from War (Time Train to the Blitz) to Romance (Defy The Stars/Falling Fast et al) via Thriller (The Medusa Project) and Mystery (Girl, Missing series). The Flynn/River saga placed the author firmly in the Teen/Young Adult category, but with her new book All My Secrets, McKenzie aims for a slightly more innocent audience. With its atmosphere of intrigue and adventure All My Secrets is an unashamed homage to Enid Blyton but most definitely without the lashings of ginger beer and sunny afternoons on Kirrin Island. This is a very dark Enid Blyton world. Teenage Evie is the inheritor of a 10 million fortune. That is the good news. The bad news is that Erin's been bequeathed the money by a woman who turns out to be her birth mother and when Evie discovers she's adopted, her world is rocked to its foundations. Rather than sit at home and dream about how she's going to spend the loot, Evie withdraws into herself and refuses to communicate with her family, so to help her come to terms with the revelations surrounding her birth, Evie is sent to dark and forbidding Lightsea House on the equally mysterious and unsettling Lightsea Island with a group of teenagers to take part in a Young Adult Development Programme, designed to help 'troubled teens' confront their past and feel confident about their future. As she engages in the programme determined to get to the truth behind who she really is, Evie's quest is helped and hindered by her fellow programme peers , male model-type Kit, sarcastic lock-picker Josh, rich and devil-may-care Pepper, the awkward and slightly autistic Samuel and quiet-as-a-mouse Anna. The scene set, the Enid Blyton adventures begin. There are escapades in caves and boats, midnight sorties throughout the rambling house, disappearances, kidnappings, attempted murders breathless chases through dark woods, sightings of mysterious, unexplained figures (one of which might be Erin's departed birth mother!). As with all good mysteries, this one leaves the reader guessing right up to the very end and as with all Sophie McKenzie novels there's so much happening there's barely a moment to draw breath. What the writer does so well is to juggle not just one or two plots but four or five and keep these plots spinning whilst adding themes of honesty, teenage angst, identity crisis, mental challenges and the journey toward self-acceptance. Not many writers could pull this off, but McKenzie achieves it with panache and aplomb. And with a rattling good read. 304 pages / ages 11+ / Reviewed by Mark White, librarian.

Suggested Reading Age 11+

Days after finishing her GCSEs Evie answers the door to find a lawyer asking to speak to her. He tells her she is going to come into an inheritance of 10 million pounds from a woman called Irina Galloway. Eve wants to know who Irina is and why she has been left this money. Her parents obviously know and are hiding it from her. She decides to find the answers for herself and in doing so a series of secrets are revealed. Evie doesn't cope with this revelation very well and ends up being enrolled on a summer programme for troubled teens on an island called Lightsea. Whilst here, she discovers the island is linked to her family secrets and she is unaware of the dangers for herself and new friends.. It is an intriguing title that makes you want to know more. It is well written and easy to follow like all of Sophie McKenzie's books. I found myself liking Evie and warmed to her character. She's not perfect but easy for girls to relate to. It is a book full of action and one that girls will love as there is a sub plot where Evie tries to work out her feelings for the two boys in the story. 304 pages / ages 11+ / Reviewed by Helen Langley, librarian.

Suggested Reading Age 11+