Annabel Dilke, Secret Relations

Secret Relations

Annabel Dilke

St. Martin's, Apr 2007, $24.95

ISBN: 0312334796

The family patriarch, attorney Lionel St. Clair, expects his grandchildren to follow the tradition of their ancestry just like his four offspring did though Henry is deceased and Camilla a disgrace as her divorce is tabloid fodder. Lionel turns to his other adult children Tom and Suki for what he demands of the younger generation of twenty-plus-years-old to continue the family image.

As the younger generation of cousins gather for the annual gala hosted by Lionel's only living sibling, injured war veteran Uncle Hector, they have desires of their own apart from being a St. Clair stereotype. Liza wants to be a singer and not a married mother at least at this time in her life. Charlie is studying to become this generation's family lawyer an "INHERITANCE" expected of him from his attorney dad; he is in love with his first cousin Kitty. She, in turn, desires her first cousin Max, who just wants to escape the ignominy of his parents' public divorce. However, anger and resentment explode, leaving the family on the verge of total collapse with only Hector trying to avert raging feuds by admitting the secret tragedy over the angry objection of Lionel that devastated him and his siblings so many years ago

Though SECRET RELATIONS starts off as a British aristocratic 1970s family drama that has been done a zillion times, Hector provides freshness when he begins to reveal the up to then the banned tragic scandal of his youth. However, the key to the insightful storyline is that each of the cousins has different personalities, which makes their wants and jealousies of one another seem genuine. Sub-genre readers will enjoy this discerning character study.

Harriet Klausner