Secrets of Eden
By: Chris Bohjalian

Published: 2010

# of pages: 362

Official description: From the bestselling author of The Double Bind, Midwives, andSkeletons at the Feast comes a novel of shattered faith, intimate secrets, and the delicate nature of sacrifice.
"There," says Alice Hayward to Reverend Stephen Drew, just after her baptism, and just before going home to the husband who will kill her that evening and then shoot himself. Drew, tortured by the cryptic finality of that short utterance, feels his faith in God slipping away and is saved from despair only by a meeting with Heather Laurent, the author of wildly successful, inspirational books about . . . angels. 
Heather survived a childhood that culminated in her own parents' murder-suicide, so she identifies deeply with Alice’s daughter, Katie, offering herself as a mentor to the girl and a shoulder for Stephen – who flees the pulpit to be with Heather and see if there is anything to be salvaged from the spiritual wreckage around him.But then the State's Attorney begins to suspect that Alice's husband may not have killed himself. . .and finds out that Alice had secrets only her minister knew.
Secrets of Eden is both a haunting literary thriller and a deeply evocative testament to the inner complexities that mark all of our lives.  Once again Chris Bohjalian has given us a riveting page-turner in which nothing is precisely what it seems.  As one character remarks, “Believe no one.  Trust no one.  Assume all of our stories are suspect.”

My opinion:  Didn't like it very much.  It was depressing with all of the domestic violence and disfunctional characters.  The whole angel thing was weird and didn't really fit with the main story line.  I liked the plot twist at the very end (the last few pages!), but I wish the rest of the book had been less disjointed and the characters easier to relate to.

Why I gave this book 2/5 stars:  Depressing, graphic violence descriptions, weird characters that were hard to relate to, a whole theme in the book that wasn't really developed and didn't go with the rest of the book.

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