Secret Sins is a book about a woman who discovers that she is not who she thinks she is. She has lived her whole life believing certain things about herself and who her family is, only to find out these things aren't true. She then goes looking to find out the truth. This is a mystery with some romance. The book was written by Jasmine Cresswell.
Nothing I am going to tell about the book is a spoiler or will ruin the ending for anyone. For the most part, what I will talk about is information that is on the back cover of the book, but I am giving a little more detail.
PLOT
The book began with a prologue that takes place in 1969 in Cleveland Ohio. Gene Zajak ws a cop on the scene of a horrible car accident. He founf a little girl in the back of one of the cars. Her parents were dead. Identification for the adults, and the child ess found. Her name was Jessica Marie Pazmany. The prologue ended with the feelings of the little girl. Her name wasn't Jessica Marie. It was Liliana. She was afraid to tell Gene her real name because her mother told her not to tell anyone her real name. Her father would find her then. She was afraid of her father. She thought of the couple she was with in the car as her aunt and uncle. She knew that she had to pretend that Jessica Marie was her name to stay safe.
The book jumped forward to 1996. Jessica just turned down a marriage proposal from the man she had been dating for almost a year. She had a bad day at work and then she ran into her ex- husband, Dan Stratton. He said he needed to talk to her, but she wasn't interested. She was still bitter about the end of their marriage, and she was nasty to him. She found out that her brother - from the family that adopted her - sent Dan to tell her something. She then agreed to meet him for dinner. Matt, her brother, found some documents in the attic. One was a death certificate for Jessica Marie Pazmany, dated several months before the car accident. I just want to say that is not a spoiler because the fact that Jessica Marie had died before the car accident is actually on the back of the book. Jessica was upset by this news at first, but then she says it wasn't important and had nothing to do with her. She then had a memory flash and remembered that her name is Lilianna.
A few days later Jessica was in New York for business. Dan found out she was there and wanted her to meet him. She reluctantly agreeed. They talked about several things and thing Jessica told Dan what she found out about the death certificate. She decided to try to find out the truth. Over the course of the book, Jessica did some investigating to find out who she really was. Dan ended up helping her do this. She found out some information, and got the attention of someone who wanted her dead. An attempt was made on her life. Jessica and Dan searched for the truth about who she really was. That was the main focus of the book.
Jessica and Dan had to work through some issues regarding their divorce. Dan wanted to talk to Jessica about it, to explain why he did what he did - he did do something that wasn't to nice - but she refused to listen. She blamed him completely for the problems they had while married. She refused to see that some of it is her fault too. When Dan tried to say that while he admits most of the trouble they had was his fault, but some of it was her fault too, she got mad. She started saying how she should have know he would find a way to blame her for everything, which he was not doing. She just wouldn't listen then. She eventually saw that she was not completely blameless in their problems. The attempt on her life put a lot of things in focus for her, made her realize some things about herself that she wouldn't see before.
There are some scenes that take place in a mental hospital. These scenes deal mainly with two characters, a doctor and a patient. The patient was somehow tied in to how Jessica came to be with the Pazmanys at the time of the car accident. That is all I am going to say about this. You have to read the book to find out how the patient is tied in with Jessica. There are a few flashbacks in the book, that deal with the patient, and explain what happened in the days leading up to the car accident. The flashbacks did add a lot to the plot and explained several things, but at times I was inpatient to get back to the current day things that were happening to Jessica and Dan.
Secret Sins was well written and descriptive. The story kept my interest throughout the book. I wasn’t bored at anytime when reading the book. I have read this book several times now and I still really enjoy it. This book wasn't serious and doesn't try to deal with serious issues or solve any major problems. It is a book to read for enjoyment, to escape for a little while. If this was a movie, I would consider it a popcorn movie. There was a little swearing here and there in the book, but it wasn’t excessive. The word that rhymes with luck wasn’t used at any time in the book.
Secret Sins was a mystery with some romance in it. The mystery revolved around Jessica's true identity and just how she came to be in the car with the Pazmanys. After thinking about it for a while, Jessica decided that she wanted to find out what her real name was and how she came to be with the Pazmanys when they had that accident. She started doing some investigating with the help of Dan. Someone knew who Jessica really was and wanted her true identity kept a secret. Someone tried to kill Jessica There were a few suspenseful moments, but overall this wasn't a suspenseful book. There were other people in the book that were someone tied to Jessica and what happened to her, but I’m not saying anything about them because I don’t want to ruin the book for anyone. When a few of those people first show up, it wasn’t known how they would tie into Jessica’s problems, but it was revealed before the end of the book. Even after it was known who some of the people were and how they fit in to what was going on, I still didn’t know exactly how things would end. Some things that happened surprised me. Parts of the book were unpredictable. The mystery part of the book wasn’t the most complex, but it was better than a lot I have read.
There was a little bit of violence described in Secret Sins, but none of it was excessive. There was only some violence in one or two scenes so it shouldn’t offend anyone. There was a bomb sent to a building that ended up killing several people, including a close friend of Jessica’s. Jessica was talking to her friend on the phone when the bomb went off. Some people may not want to read about something like that because of events in the last year around the world. If reading about something like that would be upsetting to you, this isn’t a book you should read.
The romance in Secret Sins dealt with the relationship between Jessica and Dan. They had been married and their marriage ended badly. During the book, they meet again and end up getting to know each other. They have both changed since the end of their marriage and they fell in love again. They did become intimate again, and some of those scenes were described. There were only a few of those scenes, and they were descriptive, but they were tastefully done. They weren’t really explicit. I don’t think the scenes were explicit enough to offend people, but I know that some people don’t want to read any sort of scene like that in a book. The book was predictable at times concerning Jessica and Dan's relationship, but that was normal for a romance. Some of the problems seemed to be resolved a little to easily between them. Not all of the book was predictable though.
The characters of Jessica and Dan were the main characters in Secret Sins and were well developed. To me, it seemed like Jessica was developed a bit more than Dan. More is learned about her past. The main focus of the book was her search into her past for the truth of who she was. I thought there was a little more insight into her feelings and why she did some of the things she did than there was for Dan, but was some insight into his thoughts and feelings provided too. There are some other characters, that while important to the story, either aren't in the book as much, or not as much is told about them. Those characters weren’t as well developed as Jessica and Dan, but they were developed enough for their part in the book. I am not going to name those characters, or tell about them because that would reveal too much. You have to read the book to find out about the other characters.
CHARACTERS
Jessica Marie Zajak - She was in a car accident when she was four years old. The policeman who found her thought that she was the daughter of the couple killed in that car, the Pazmanys. She was later adopted by a member of the policeman's family. Jessica forgot what her real name was until almost thirty years later. She then started investigating her past. She was a very independent woman use to taking car of herself. She froze people out and bottled her emotions up. She thought that she couldn't express her feelings. She thought that she had to be perfect all the time. She blamed Dan for all the problems and refused to admit that she was partially to blame too. After someone tried to kill her, Jessica realized some things about herself, one thing being that the divorce wasn't all Dan's fault.
Dan Stratton - Jessica's ex-husband. He was still friends with her family. He was the person that showed Jessica the death certificate, proving that she wasn't who she thought she was. He helped her find out the truth about her past and who she was. He has gotten his life together. He admited that he screwed up his life, and their marriage, big time. He still loveed Jessica.
Secret Sins was a good, well written book that was worth reading. Anyone who has enjoyed other books by Jasmine Cresswell should like this one. Anyone who likes mysteries with romance should like this book. People who don’t like romances or are offended by descriptions of sex shouldn’t read this book.
Secret Sins
Jasmine Cresswell
Mira Books, 1997
ISBN # - 1-55166-261-2
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