We All Have Secrets

This is a generally well-written and crafted adventure story set during the Cuban Missile crisis in the early 1960s and based mostly on an island somewhere off the Florida coast. A newly qualified doctor, Molly McCormick, is attacked brutally at her apartment in Baltimore just as she's graduating. There is a thoroughly nasty, gruesome description of the attack which almost put me off reading the rest of the book. Fortunately, other than the attacker being a psychopath (inevitable child abuse again) we don't hear from him again until the last few pages of the book making me wonder why he was there at all other than to provide an excuse for Molly to go back home and get involved with the Cuban Crisis. Anyway, she gets help via an ingenious method, is patched up at the local hospital and eventually goes home to this island off Florida to recuperate. There she is safe with her grandfather, retired Naval cum Intelligence Officer, his housekeeper with history not to mention an Irish priest trying to sort his own demons, a native American working for National Geographic and various other minor but colourful characters plus the rebels in Cuba. The latter are rather stereotypical bumbling Hispanics however - you can just see the droopy moustaches. There are plenty of little things going on - someone trying to slowly poison her grandfather, their puppy getting injured, boats breaking down, electricity failure and a homeless women keen on voodoo looking after a more or less deaf child. They are all crafted into a reasonable story along with Molly coming to terms with her physical and psychological scars plus a potential bit of romance for her along the way, on several occasions. I think that quite a lot of the descriptions could be there to provide background for future stories although it might just be that the author is good at, and likes, writing descriptive text. Something not to be sniffed at. I conclude 'background' since there are plenty of stones not quite completely turned over by the end and remain so. I would probably be happy to read number 2 in the series and see how that goes before committing to Molly and Co with real enthusiasm. Thanks to NetGalley and BooksGoSocial for an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

Down to the sea we go - the steamy sea - the islands with swamps and mosquitoes and noseeums - all ready to drink your blood...
In this novel we go back to the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the islands that are just next door to Cuba.
There are some interesting hints of future storylines coming through in the male characters and it will be disappointing if the series doesn’t follow them up.
The female character - Molly- still lacks definition for me, not yet fully formed but hopefully she will develop. Her final choice of career was obvious from the visit she made to an outlying island so no surprises there.
This is not the first book by this author that I have read, but the one with most potential for me.

We All Have Secrets is set in the early 1960s during the time Fidel Castro had just pointed missiles towards the United States. During this time, we find Dr McCormick suffering from the aftermath of an attack by a deranged psychiatric patient. She not only has suffered physical damage, but psychological as well.

The author did a great job in describing the scene, the characters, and the over all storyline. This is a new author for me, and I hope to read more from her in the future.