Secrets are like scars over a wound that never quite disappears.
All her life Chala has been haunted by a childhood tragedy. When her much-loved stepfather dies suddenly, she escapes to Kenya, to revisit the lake she was named after and a country imbued for her with happy memories.
Kenya has its own troubles, and soon she is caught up in the lives of the orphans she works with and in Kenya’s political turmoil, which brings dangers and tragedies of its own. But although she can walk away from Kenya, she cannot walk away from herself.
The Guiltiest Secrets is a powerful and absorbing story that explores the power of secrets to run our lives.
“Compelling, evocative, sharply observed and exquisitely written.”
“An engaging, compassionate masterpiece of literary fiction.”
“A moving, poignant story”
“Shelan Rodger’s writing has a haunting quality … The real beauty of her writing is her ability to connect with the reader so well. Gloriously detailed, beautifully written and extremely memorable.”
“Inner turmoil, unreliable memories, lies and secrets: Shelan Rodger writes about relationships and identity with a truthfulness we find hard to face up to - and she’s very good at it.”
Back Story
I have a strong connection with Kenya, where part of the novel is set. My father is buried there, my mother still lives there and my husband and I spent six years there. We were living in Naivasha, one of the worst-hit areas of the country during the post-election violence of 2007, which claimed over a thousand lives and displaced more than half a million people.
The term ‘skeleton in the closet’ was first used in the early 1800s – what a wonderful image that still is! Our own secrets can shape us and drive us, and the secrets of others can be intimately connected with our lives in ways that we may never know.
In this novel, previously called Yellow Room, I wanted to explore the way our inner world interacts with and can be affected by another culture and external events around us. Above all, I wanted to explore the power of secrets and the shifting sands of our sense of self…