How many secrets unroll out of the first secret?  When Emily’s life starts to unravel, she has no idea what the root of the issue is.  Her work, her husband and daughter seem to be spiraling out of control. Can she figure it out and pull it all back together?

While I figured out some, the rest kept me guessing.  A solid read.

Carol Mason writes with the brilliant forensic complexity of Cath Staincliffe and the searing emotional veracity of Liane Moriarty in her latest addictive thriller, Little White Secrets.

Perfection is a word that could be used to describe Emily Rossi and her lifestyle. She seems to lead a life straight out of the glossy pages of an inspirational magazine with a great husband, a thriving career, a beautiful house in the country and two wonderful children. Emily seems to be living the dream until her daughter Zara brings a cuckoo in the nest that ends up up-ending all of their lives forever. Emily’s family starts spiralling out of control with Zara beginning to stay out late, take drugs and making unsuitable friendships. Emily is at her wit’s end and she needs her husband more than ever. But Eric seems to be too concerned with his job in London and keeping his drinking habit a secret to care…

Secrets seems to be desperate to tumble out of the Rossi’s closet. After years of perfection being the gold standard of their lives, when a dark and twisted secret is uncovered, Emily’s life is once again turned upside down. With her family’s life to protect, can Emily save her damaged family? Even if by doing so might mean keeping her own dark secret from them?

A chilling family drama about the lengths a mother goes to for the sake of her family, Little White Secrets is not your average thriller. Incredibly tense, brilliantly suspenseful and with twists and turns galore, Little White Secret is a white knuckle edge of your seat kind of book you will struggle to put down – just make sure you lock all your doors and windows first!

A brilliant thriller that is a cut above from the usual domestic noir fare, Little White Secrets is a nail-biting chiller from the talented Carol Mason.

Little White Secrets is gripping, tense and full of drama!  I was hooked from the beginning reading this story as it alternates with a dual plot line.  Emily appears to have it all – solid marriage, nice house, good job and two children.  But what happens when you are not sure you can trust your husband, you can no longer relate to your rebellious teenage daughter, a mysterious woman and her daughter suddenly appear and a newly widowed doctor moves in across the street.  Who is holding secrets, how will they impact your perfect life and which are more than little while lies?

This book wasn't what I expected.

Nope. 

It was more. I'm not a fan of family suspense but I decided to give this a chance. A bingeable tale.

This book is really well written. 

I read this as an ARC.

It didn't pull me in at first but I am the type of reader that can't stop reading a book and I'm very glad I am for this book because the secrets (from the title) that unfold throughout the book were really good. I wasn't expecting any of them.

There were times in the book where I found myself gasping and saying 'no don't do it'. I was invested in the characters. I felt sorry for Zara as she was teen going through teen stuff and then all the other stuff on top and getting into the wrong crowd of people because she seemingly just wanted to fit in.

Relationships, family and secrets a plenty in the book. I really liked it.

The writing of this book really captivated me. It’s a good mystery and has a twist that is always welcome. I guessed the secret Eric was keeping from his wife but felt that the characters, story and writing were good enough to keep me reading and enjoying the book. I highly recommend Little White Secrets to anyone looking for an engaging suspense book that is filled with strong, memorable characters. Ms. Mason's clever look at how people are not always who they seem creates a story that keeps you turning the pages. What secrets are they hiding and could those secrets hurt us? Who can we really trust and do we really know those people closest to us that we love? This is a psychological family drama about deep secrets, real fear, love, and losses. Right up to the last page, I was pulled in, engaged, and could not put this book down. If you enjoy suspenseful stories, this is a book you want to read. I look forward to reading each new book this author puts out!

As Little White Secrets begins, the Rossi family is posing for pictures to accompany a feature article in a glossy magazine. Eric, the father who has a temporary job in London, is perhaps a bit too effusive. Mother Emily, a college professor,  is proud of her family but worried about her appearance in her new green dress. Daniel, the son and superstar tennis player, is the subject of the article. His younger sister Zara, a bit overweight and uncomfortable with publicity, stands by awkwardly. In the magazine, six months later, they appear to be a perfect family. Things are not always what they seem.

The Rossis deal well with superficial problems, ignoring the serious fractures in their relationship that threaten to break it apart. While Emily deals with a career threatening situation and the handsome doctor next door, she ignores Eric’s manipulations and absences. When Janet and her daughter Bethany enter their lives, things begin to unravel. Zara falls under Bethany’s spell and her personality changes almost immediately. While Emily tries desperately to reconnect with Zara and distance her from Bethany’s friends, it becomes obvious that Eric has major hidden problems of his own. The explosive conclusion is both satisfying and sad.

Little White Secrets is a 5 star read. While I would have liked to see Daniel as a more developed character, the pressure his sports success puts on the family helps to explain why problems have developed. No one in the Rossi family is without fault. Their mistakes have been hidden too long and as Carol Mason slowly reveals them, you realize how much damage has been done. This is family drama at its best.

Thanks to NetGalley, Amazon Publishing and Carol Mason for this ARC.

3-4 Stars rounded up 

The Rossi family seem to have the perfect life. Father Eric has a good job in London, mother Emily has a part time lecturer job at Leeds University, son Daniel is a promising young tennis player and daughter Zara seems to be doing well. Within six months their lives start to implode revealing the cracks they are papered over in the last few years. It’s apparent Eric is hiding several things, Emily’s work life is about to undergo a worrying upheaval but most alarming of all is that Janet and daughter Bethany Brown Exeter their loves and Bethany’s malign influence over fellow teenager Zara is to become frightening in its power. The story is told by Emily and Eric. 

The characters are well portrayed and some are likeable such as Emily and Daniel. Janet and Bethany are strange, both are quite rude and abrupt and very easy to picture. The teenagers are their behaviour is well depicted and shows very clearly how easy it is for lives to be utterly derailed extremely rapidly when one person exerts control over another. Eric is delusional about a lot of things and is only truthful when he has no choice but he is interesting. His behaviour in the past shows that one wrong decision can have a tsunami effect even years later. The plot is believable, the pace is good and it’s well written and their spiralling out of control lives make for entertaining reading! There is tension and suspense between characters which comes across clearly. The ending is surprising and unexpected and though not necessarily morally right it is believable.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Amazon Publishing for a copy of the book. 

Overall, an easy read which shines a light in how seemingly perfect lives can be uprooted by an unlucky chance with resulting destruction of a family.

FirstLine ~ PROLOUGE: 'Zara?' I shout, as I stare at my face in the mirror at the bottom of the stairs.



This book was a quite the read. It had a lot of twists and turns that I certainly did not see coming. It was an intense domestic thriller that kept me on the edge of my seat! I loved the characters and how dynamic all the relationships were. You definitely had some breadcrumbs laid out for you, but you never quite knew where the intense intersections of the plot/subplots were going to come to a head. Brilliant!

To me it remains a bit of a secret why other people find this a great book.
I mean the writing is great, but the story never really hooks me. From the first few chapters I already knew where the story was going and how it might end. For this type of book it’s not what you want.

Emily seems to have a perfect family, but in the first few chapters you already know this absolutely isn’t the case. The only character who seems to be ‘perfect’ is her son, but he only rarely makes an appearance. The story is about her daughter, Zara, and her husband Eric. Zara seems quiet and a thoughtful soul until she brings home a new friend who sets in motion a slew of life changing events for this family.

As I mentioned before I found this book unsurprising and highly predictable. You’d expect twists and turn and surprising secrets and reveals in this book, but it didn’t have it for me.

Well-written, well-paced look at a family splintering under alcoholism, infidelity, and deception.  Dark and plot-driven, with few sympathetic characters among the adults.  Frequent readers of thrillers may find the twists predictable.

Overall a well written story with good characters although for me it was a bit of a slow burner but I think that is because my main reads are psychological thrillers.

Not sure I would read more from this author but this is purely my own opinion.

Overall I enjoyed this. I predicted most of the twists though but it still highlighted the drama around teenagers and family secrets. How little white 'secrets' are actually just lies.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for an early copy. 

Little White Secrets is well written. 
It’s captivating domestic drama, hooks you in from the beginning chapters, into a fictional but realistic world that you feel you’re there, living the characters lives.
There’s  a bit of everything in this tale, deception, addiction, mental health issues, lies, teenage angst and relationship. It pulls at your heart strings  
I really enjoyed this book and would happily recommend it and will definitely read more of this author's books in the future.

I really enjoyed this book, it was easy to fall straight into, at first I felt it wasn’t giving me quite enough thrills and wasn’t moving as quick as I would have liked it to however the author was very clever at building the picture up and getting you really hooked to the characters and the twisted plot.
.
I found a few characters frustrating and felt quite cringy reading about the husband Eric! I just didn’t have a very good feel for him through the whole book and thought he came across as an absolute pig!
Overall a capturing read and an absolute page turner!

The picture was Emily Rossi's favourite, it was a picture that portrayed a happy family, a picture of perfection. Emily, her loving husband Eric, their son Daniel who was a tennis superstar and their quiet,sensitive daughter Zara. If it is true that every picture tells a story then the Rossi families would be a fairy tale.

But their fairy tale is about to take a dark turn when Zara brings a bad apple into their perfect world, a girl who Emily takes a instant dislike to. Soon Zara is sneaking out, drinking, possibly taking drugs and hanging out with bad company. Emily has no idea what to do and really needs Eric to be an involved father but he seems more concerned about his job in London... plus, he is drinking again.

Emily's picture perfect world is crumbling apart and she is not prepared to just stick her head in the sand and pretend it's not happening. But how far is she prepared to go to save her damaged family?

This enthralling, domestic drama is voiced almost entirely from Emily's perspective, a character who I didn't like or feel any sympathy towards for various reasons. I know many readers will probably have thought that Zara was a brat but I actually felt a lot of empathy towards her and fully understood why she behaved in the way that she did. I can also say the same for poor Bethany, she didn't stand a chance in life really but that didn't excuse her behaviour. The difference in the two girls upbringings raised the question, does whichever side of the social decide that a child grows up on affect their behaviour as they grow up and strive for their independence? I spent most of the book disliking Bethany's mother Janet but then the truth behind her actions was revealed and I suddenly felt quite guilty for being so judgemental. Interspersed throughout the book was chapters that slipped back in time and were voiced from Eric's perspective. I had mixed feelings about Eric as the story unfolded, there was times when I felt sorry for him and other times when I found him very unlikable.

Little White Secrets is a well written, captivating Domestic drama that hooks you in and draws you into the author's diverse characters fictional but realistic world. It's a tale of deception, addiction, mental health issues, lies, teenage angst and relationships that plays with the reader's emotions and pulls at your heart strings. I really enjoyed this book and would happily read more of this author's books in the future. Very very highly recommended.

Wow this book is completely different to what I’ve read before and I LOVED that about it!

This book follows a family who from the outside look like the perfect family in their big house, long marriage, nice things! However when a new girl comes to town their lives start falling apart!

There are so many secrets to uncover (some I found predictable and others were huge shocks) Eric (the dad) continues to succumb to alcohol! Daniel (the son) is the idle son however Zara (the daughter) goes extremely downhill when the new girl (Bethany) comes to town!

I don’t want to say too much about the story as I’m too worried about giving things away, but many secrets surface, many lies are told, many threats are made and life for Em (the mum) is extremely tough!

I really felt for Em throughout the whole book because she put everyone’s happiness before her own and tried to keep the family together and going! I can imagine there are many families like this where one person might be doing the same!

Everything falls apart for her, however she has done nothing wrong so I just find this heart breaking for her!

There is some sadness to the ending but also some peace and happiness! 

I can imagine so many parents struggling with their teen who is going down the wrong path and feeling at a loss to what to do to get them back in the right path! 

I found this book, intense and thrilling, dark and secretive and that just kept me invested the whole time! 

Another 5 ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ rating from me as I thoroughly enjoyed this and would love to read more of this authors writing!

Secrets and deceit. Carol Mason has crafted a fast-paced addictive story filled with drama, lies, and misdirection. Emily seemingly had the perfect family a loving husband, a super athlete son, and a sweet daughter. That is until it all began to unravel one secret at a time. What I really liked most about this book is Emily was such a likable character. She seriously did not deserve the hot mess that her life turned into. Struggling to keep her family afloat while her husband grew more and more distant and her daughter found her way into a bad situation. And then to compound things the past starts to rear its ugly head. Tense, riveting, compulsive, entertaining, and dark. This is a book that will definitely appeal to anyone who is a fan of a dark domestic drama with some unforgettable twists.

*** Big thank you to Lake Union for my gifted copy of this book. All opinions are my own. ***

The reader is told that the husband in the story has a secret from the outset. From outlookers Eric has the perfect family but it's all a facade. There are a multitude of cracks tearing their family portrait and it's barely clinging together. There's not a lot of drama until you're well and truly towards the end of the story but it didn't seem to compensate for the long drawn out first half of the book.

This felt like a fairly predictable domestic read and a good 'holiday' read. I've read other reviews claiming they thought there was a huge twist in the story but it all felt too easy. It's a dark book with cracks forming in the various character's friendships, relationships, home and work lives respectively. It wasn't easy to keep picking the book up and I felt a bit disappointed that I'd instinctively figured out the ending of the book. Clearly I read too many mystery books.

Having said that, it's a well written book and one that has an accessible style to read easily. Mason has created realistic characters who are easy to sympathise with. She paints the picture of living with an alcoholic in brutal honesty. The denial, anger and chaos they inflict upon those they love is captured in painful clarity.

Not an easy read but on which shows the importance of telling the truth to our loved ones. Not all little white secrets are as little as they seem.

Carol Mason British author and this is her sixth novel. I'm not sure how I missed reading her books but after reading Little White Secrets I plan to read her earlier books. This was a well written book about a family in trouble and the lengths that a mother will go to make sure her family is safe.

Emily and Eric Rossi live in a small town in England. Eric works in London and only comes home on the weekends and Emily is a professor at the local university. They have two children: 18 year old Daniel who is a tennis superstar and Zara, 14 years old, who is quiet and sensitive and doesn't fit well into her school life or her family life. Life may not be perfect for the Rossi family but it's pretty close to perfect. As the reader gets to know the family, we see the cracks developing that may tear them apart. Emily resents Eric being gone all week and leaving the parenting to her. Eric is developing a drinking problem. Zara who hasn't had a friend since they moved finds a new friend and she and Bethany become inseparable . The problem is that this friendship is toxic - Bethany has no respect for authority, drinks and has a boyfriend 10 years older than her. Bethany's mom turns a blind eye to all the trouble that her daughter causes and doesn't get involved in her life. When Emily finds out that Zara has been skipping school and hanging out with Bethany's older friends, she forbids Zara to see her friend again. We all know how well that works out with a teenage daughter! We are aware that Zara has secrets but it's the secrets that Eric and Emily are keeping from each other that may implode this family. Even small secrets, over time can become major. Can Emily save her family as the secrets come to light or will the secrets keep her family from surviving.

This is the story of family and love and acceptance. It's full of suspense that keep the pages turning and make it into a very satisfying novel. It kept me up most of one night to see how it would end. If you enjoy family-centric novels, this is one to add to your to-read list.

Thanks to the publisher for a copy of this book to read and review. All opinions are my own.