Macmillan has kindly offered ten hardcovers of The Ashford Affair to give away – though I am limited to US and Canadian readers (my apologies). I'm offering five digital copies open to anyone worldwide – so if you'd like to read The Ashford Affair (and I hope you do!) come share… it's secret time!
To enter, tell us about a secret you've heard or kept — though feel free to change some details if the secret is STILL a secret.
Since The Ashford Affair is all about unraveling family secrets, I thought this was entirely appropriate! Please specify which you'd like – hardcover or digital.
Standard disclaimers apply: I'm not being compensated for this giveaway. Void where prohibited. Hardcover giveaway open to US and Canadian residents. Digital giveaway open to international residents to the extent permitted by applicable law. Must be over 18 and pretending to smoke with one of those badass cigarette holders to enter. Keep out of reach of children. Contact with moving or stationary objects can cause injury. Close cover before striking. Objects in mirror may be younger than they appear.
Comments will close 4pm ET Friday 26 April, and I'll determine the winners by random selection.
I'm still thinking about this book, and I would love to give you the opportunity to read it. Will you share a little secret with us? We won't tell!
I honestly cannot think of a single secret! I don’t know if I’ve forgotten or if I have an untrustworthy face 😉 Not a single juicy family secret, cheating friend, etc. My three year old did tell me the other day that she had to “whisper a secret in your ear” but all she said was “THE CAT IS REALLY PRETTY” which is totally not a secret, we DO have a really pretty cat.
I know a whole load of toxic stuff about my sister that she confided to me when she was under the influence. We were never close – big age gap – but the things she told me and the context and tone really changed my opinion of her. I’ve never told anyone and I’ve never told her that she told me these things.
I really wish I didn’t know these things. 🙁
I’m in the UK, so a digital version would be great!
For some reason that I’ve never been able to figure out, people always tell me their secrets. Sometimes people I don’t even know well! My favorite secret was that a friend of mine was having a girl, and they were keeping the sex of the baby quiet (due to possible issues with the father’s family). They wanted to have the baby and name it without anyone butting in, which is completely understandable.
It’s not a secret so much as an evasion. I don’t floss. And I’m getting my teeth cleaned in less than an hour. :-/
My mother took dance lessons and for some reason kept it a secret from my father (they lived in separate states due to work) and she wouldn’t let me tell him. I never understood why this was a big deal – it’s not like she was taking it to surprise him – but I think it was her own thing and she wanted to keep it as her own private thing.
Hard copy, please
Shoot… so many. Okay. Here’s one: Back in 1990, I was studying in the UK. I told my parents that I was going to Ireland when in reality I was going to New York to see a friend. The Gulf War had just started, and I think I didn’t want them to worry or something. Who knows?
This is fun reading all the secrets. My hubby and I told everyone we were married when we weren’t. We got married 6 months later. So we celebrate our anniversary twice a year. 😉
My Dad married his mistress before his divorce was final from my mother.
I tell you when that secret was revealed it was a shit storm.
Hard copy please. I love Lauren Willig’s novels!
I found pictures of my (then) BFF’s boyfriend’s (recent, undisclosed) wedding to another woman on the interwebs….Don’t think he realized that Google worked on foreign country websites.
It’s not a secret anymore, but my great-uncle was married during WWII to an English woman and they had a son. And then the war ended and they got divorced and he came home and practically no one knew. He got remarried, had a daughter.
My great-grandmother knew and wrote the son letters and kept in touch. Eventually, everyone found out and now the son and daughter are good friends. It doesn’t sound like there was drama, just that everyone was “I didn’t know you’d been married?” I put a lot of the credit on my great-grandmother, who kept writing letters and keeping in touch with him.
I love Lauren Willig’s books. I’d like either version, but I’d slightly prefer digital.
My mother thinks her grandfather was a bigamist. He was known to vanish for months on end, and my mother once looked him up in census records and found another listing in the same city for his (not that common) name at an address she knew nothing about.
Hard copy please.
In high school a good friend was hospitalized for an eating disorder and self-harm, and we kept that secret, telling anyone who asked that she had the flu (or mono, I can’t remember now). I also kept my own eating disorder a secret from everyone while it was happening, and I’ve only told a few people in the many years since I’ve moved past it. Either digital or print would be lovely!
I tend to be the last person to know anything, but if someone tells me a secret I do my best to keep it. A couple that come to mind:
During my freshman year of college I kept it a secret that my best friend was having an affair with an much older guy (who was a total loser, but that’s another story).
When I was growing up I didn’t let on that I knew my aunt had a son out of wedlock before marrying my uncle because it seemed so important to everyone that it be a secret. By the time I was in high school the family had given up pretending, but my mom didn’t know until years and years later than I had known way before that.
If I win I’ll take a hard copy and leave the digital for the folks outside the US & Canada.
The hardest secret I had to keep was my pregnancy – but I managed to not spill the beans to anyone other than my Mom for those first 12 weeks- but man that was difficult!
I also found out that before he met my Mom my Dad had a child with another woman that he was forced to give up for adoption amid abuse accusations (years later their babysitter was caught and convicted of shaking the kids she babysat for and they suspect that is what happened with my unknown half brother)
Print is prefered
One of my friends from graduate school told me he cheated on the written portion of his doctoral exams by bringing in cheat-sheets with him—he’s now a professor at a major university!
If I’m lucky enough to be chosen as a winner, I’d prefer a hardcover copy of the book, please!
I’ve kept the secret of a couple of close friends’ pregnancies till they were willing to tell the wider world. However, the secret I’ve kept the longest is this: when my brother was a senior in college, he called me and said, “I was riding my bike home and almost got hit by a bus. Don’t tell Mom.” He was unhurt. That was in 1999, and I still haven’t told Mom.
Currently keeping a friend’s separation under wraps. Hard copy, please.
I’m a lawyer so I hear all sorts of secrets that I can and will never ever talk about.
Oops. I forgot to say paper, please.
Oooh, I’m excellent at keeping secrets! The current one is that this dude I work with got drunk when he was out of the country on business, and asked everyone at the bar where to get an extra-large butt plug, because he couldn’t find a good sized one at home. He’d be SUPER embarrassed if he found out I know, and I’m having a hard time not telling everyone in the office, because it’s so funny! (Nothing wrong with butt plugs, but you should probably keep them separate from your work life!)
Thanks for the giveaway! & digital, please!
Took me a while to think up one secret and then they wouldn’t stop coming up: a friend (who shall remain not only nameless but also genderless, just in case), who, to start things off, was in the country illegally; and then married another friend to stay here. OK, but said friend was gay (opposite gender) and in a long-term partnership. It could have been a sitcom but degenerated into hateful backstabbing.
Then there’s the family overachiever, widely considered to be a perfect angel by our elders. Oh, if only they knew, but none of us youngsters have ever breathed a word about her many (good lord, that would be an on-going soap opera!) adventures of every stripe. And somehow her parents never questioned the funny smells/stains when she returned their car after a night out “studying.”
Either version would be most appreciated, thanks.
So many secrets. My grandmother had 7 children. One of them was illegitimate. Both are now deceased so…..
I wonder if a grandchild of mine will tell my secrets in public with the same nonchalance. (shudder).
There is one secret that I’ve been asked to keep more than once but from different people: that someone was “talking” (ie sexing) to someone NOT their significant other. i don’t know what it is about my face or personality that screams “HEY THIS IS A CHICK WHO WANTS TO KNOW MY PERSONAL BUSINESS AND WHO WANT TELL ANYONE ELSE” but it happens often. Weird right?
When my mother was in hospice my niece was a freshman at a nearby college. My niece would spend hours keeping her grandparents company during my mother’s last days.
She was always careful to pull her hair up before visiting. My niece didn’t want my mom upset that she’d[my niece] had gotten about a foot of hair cut off.
I kept someone’s sexual orientation secret for years. it was a huge relief when he finally came out.
At Grandpa’s recent funeral, we all discovered that he had a surprise wife whom he’d married years ago and apparently forgotten to divorce. She showed up to the wake like Maleficent at the christening. (Helpful PSA: if you have a secret legal spouse whom none of your offspring know about, please make sure you draft a WILL.)
Secrets, I’ve kept many and have some, but the best words regarding secrets ever written are James Baldwin’s: “The trouble with a secret life is that it is frequently a secret from the person who lives it and not at all a secret for the people he encounters.” He certainly knew of what he spoke. So wise. (Paper please.)
All the secrets I know are still just that, secrets. However I still would love to read
about other peoples secrets in the book!
My friend was looking for a summer job before she goes off to grad school. When her boss asked her when she was planning to leave, she told him she was leaving within a year. Her boss doesn’t know that She is really leaving in August and only needs a a job for a few months. She works in food service and every time I go in to see her, we can’t talk about future plans. Although she didn’t tell an outright lie—August is within a year—I am keeping her secret.
I know how someone (can’t tell) really lost her V-card. It’s not with the person everyone thinks, and yes, it’s a big deal.
My secret is that my husband has a fantastic job offer in San Francisco. We currently live in Chicago where we just moved to from Kansas City to be closer to both of our parents. We haven’t told our parents/family members yet because nothing is finalized and it’s driving me CRAZY! I also think our parents are going to have a hard time dealing with us moving that far away o_O
Most of my secrets involve eating junk food on the sly.
I try to be a good role model for my daughter and eat well in front of her while encouraging her to develop good eating habits. But after I drop her off at practice, I will stop at the drive through and pick up a shake or french fries (and sometimes both – the horror!)
I’ve kept pregnancies secret both my own and for friends. But the biggest secret that I can’t tell people is that I have a half sister. Almost nobody in our family knows that my mom had a baby when she was in university. She took a year off of school, went away to live with friends of the family and nobody knew. It took my mom over 30 years to work up the courage to tell us. I’m hoping that one day circumstances will change and we’ll finally get to meet our sister.
either version works for me.
My mother has a tattoo. It is a big secret because she told each of her children that if they ever got a tattoo, they would no longer be allowed to live in her house. The best part is that she actually waited until we were all grown to get it. She has no idea that I know about it and I have not told anyone.
My aunt never passed on money from relatives for the holidays, so they think my family snubbed them. She did it to spite my mother pretty much because she doesn’t like her. My grandpa asked me to keep it a secret.
I’d prefer digital, but I won’t turn down a hardback either 😛
If not here where else would I be able to reveal that I have been celibate for 22 years. That I was a virgin when I married and my ex is the only one I ever slept with. I was married for 11 of my 55 years…
I am very very very bad at keeping secrets. I tend to forget which things are confidences and they just spill out when least expected. My youngest daughter stopped confiding in me through high school because I embarrassed her by referring to her current crush in public. I know; I’m a horrible mom. At least I didn’t tease her in front of the actual boy. Fortunately, she was pretty well-behaved teen, and she survived to forgive me.
The most recent secret I was asked to keep is that a co-worker deliberately scheduled some time off to maximize the inconvenience to the rest of the staff. Fortunately, when that co-worker is out, it’s a holiday for everyone, no matter how hard we have to work. Also fortunately, none of my co-workers haunt SBTB.
Wow these are all super interesting!
I don’t really have any secrets because I am always the last one to know everything. Except for when my friend got her belly button pierced without telling her parents. I don’t think they know yet, either…
Currently sitting on a big secret, which is all I can say about that now.
It’s interesting the range of types of secrets posted here. Most of the secrets I have kept or am keeping have to do with disfunctional family dynamics and are not much fun to talk about.
The only funny secret I remember keeping was for a close friend many years ago, when we were both in our 20s. She didn’t want to date at the time, but felt self-conscious about being single, so she made up a boyfriend. I went along with her pretend boyfriend and didn’t tell anyone about it, until years later.