Title: Secret Keeper (My Myth Trilogy #2)
Author: Jane Alvey Harris
Narrator: Jane Alvey Harris
Link: https://www.audible.com/pd/Secret-Keeper-Audiobook/B07D92ZQ5X
Summary
Non-explicit trigger warning for childhood abuse including molestation.
What if the worst thing isn’t that they don’t believe you?
What if this worst thing is that they just don’t care?
Seventeen year-old Emily has accepted the truth of her past trauma and made peace with her battered egos. She’s won the first battle…barely…but the war in her psyche still rages. The same day Mom is released from rehab and Emily finishes detox, Dad announces he’s ready to be a family again, throwing Emily into panic. Determined to protect her younger brothers and sister from Dad, she gathers the strength to do the hardest thing she’s ever done: speak her Secret.
But it isn’t enough. Nobody will intervene. Emily is more alone and helpless than ever. Her therapist suggests that the key to resolving her crises lies within the mysterious First Realm, where Emily has access to her Fae abilities and where she can find her Champion…the one person with enough power to end the destructive cycle of abuse and help Emily transform from victim to survivor.
Desperate for guidance, Emily returns to the First Realm only to discover the Seven Kingdoms in total chaos. She has just a few days to find her Champion before Dad comes for her. Can she complete her task and return to the Second Realm in time to save her family, or will her dreaded premonition turn out to be true: that she is her own worst enemy?
My Review
5/5 Stars
Emily has come to terms with her past and the things that have happened. When her father tries to re-enter her family though, she has no choice but to tell the truth of what he’s done in the hopes of protecting her younger siblings. In the real world, she struggles to move from victim to survivor while at the same time channeling herself into a warrior to save the Kingdom in the other Realm.
Dealing with the difficult topic of child molestation, the My Myth trilogy really shows us what it means to be brave. Especially when someone is at their most vulnerable. The fantastical worldbuilding is a wonderful way to show how Emily has moved forward with her pain and is working toward healing. The emotional despair from book one to now is powerful and easy to understand. Emily’s desperation to be safe is another thing that’s easy to relate to.
While this book may be difficult to some for the subject it deals with, it is important just the same. There are girls out there like Emily going through the same thing without the courage to come forward, to make their perpetrator pay for the things they’ve done. Emily’s PTSD was written in a way that was very believable, especially with the random flip flop between this world and the other.
Narration by the author is always an interesting thing to me. They know exactly how to script their characters, and in this instance, it was no different. It was easy to hear Emily’s pain and vulnerability, and I think that made the story even better because it was real.
This book was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review.
Author Kayla Krantz 