All Her Secrets by Jane Shemilt and how to create suspense
The Craft Review #4 How to keep readers reading by heightening tension
This is my third The Craft Review -if you simply like reading, it’s a free review of a psychological thriller by Jane Shemilt, who has been described by fellow psychological thriller writer, Jane Corry, as ‘a mistress at skilfully weaving seemingly perfect family lives with deadly secrets from the past in stunning locations.’
If you’re interested in writing a book that readers won’t want to put down, then do please consider subscribing to find out how to do this in the craft part of the review. Well, suggestions, at least! No one has the answer!
In today’s review, we’ll be looking at how to write suspense.
My other The Craft Reviews are available - Peter Swanson’s, The Christmas Guest,
and The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho by Joseph Paterson.
And if you want to read more articles about writing, you can find them in The Process.
“We are a perfect family.
That’s what you might think, it’s what James would want you to think, one of those perfect families you see in an upmarket Sunday newspaper supplement. “
So begins Julia’s story. The wife of a high-profile headmaster at a private school in London, Julia seems to have it all: the perfect figure, husband, child, job, house. Her story alternates with Sofie’s, a thirteen-year-old child, living on Paxos, a Greek island, twenty years ago. Sofie’s family are the caretakers for a grand house and estate owned by Julia’s parents, Peter and Jane. Her story begins when the owners arrive for the summer, accompanied by the fifteen-year-old Julia and an entourage of friends, including two teenage boys.
Julia’s present day perfect life, and Sofie’s seemingly idyllic, sun-soaked childhood are soon shattered. It is quickly clear how much Julia ‘pays’ for her relationship with her husband; much smarter than him, she is his unofficial PA and secretary and writes his speeches, whilst running her own job as a school caterer, starving herself to be as thin as he desires and submitting to increasingly brutal and painful sex.
Sofie, meanwhile, struggles to understand the adult world, to be noticed by the new comers, at the same time as working hard alongside her family, who are also unnoticed and unthanked as they slave to make their wealthy and boorish visitors’ lives as comfortable as possible.
Julia meets an enigmatic therapist called Laurel at the first parents’ evening of the term, and later, when she bumps into Laurel again, is drawn to her, turning to her for therapy.
This is a slow-burn of a thriller as we discover how Julia, Sofie and Laurel are connected; the terrible dark secret, suppressed for twenty years, is revealed, what the ramifications have been and who is seeking revenge. The Greek setting is beautifully described; a stark contrast to the harrowing story that unfolds, in this unputdownable novel that deals with child abuse and savage misogyny.
As Julia says at the start of All Her Secrets:
“Perfect lives you might say, looking at the magazine, perfect daughter, home, clothes, hair, teeth. You would have trusted in those images, they have power, which is what my story is really about: truth and power, how it’s traded, how lost.”
All Her Secrets is Jane Shemilt’s sixth novel; her first Daughter, was a run away success, a best-seller, advertised with posters on the London Underground. I mean, that is the height of fame as far as I’m concerned!
The story was about a missing teenager, Naomi, and her mother’s Jenny’s search for her, which leads to the discovery of some painful truths, and the realisation that her daughter is not who she thought she was. Daughter also features two time lines, one when the events of the story were unfolding, and one a year later as Jenny reflects on what happened and what it meant for her and her family.
When the book was published, Jane said that she had deliberately wanted to slow down the pace of the the thriller and make it more reflective. In fact, having two time lines can be a way of heightening tension and increasing suspense. Here’s how: