Little Secrets

I’m such a sucker for books set in Australia; I’m not sure what it is about the setting, but they feel atmospheric in a way that reading about stories happening in the United States just doesn’t compare to. I was a huge fan of Snoekstra’s last book, Only Daughter, and when I saw she had another book coming out I couldn’t request it quickly enough. While this was a good read, I want to be clear that it is completely different from the style and pacing of her debut novel. Where Only Daug [...]

EXCERPT: It was a pleasant, quiet morning until the woman started screaming. The street had been silent except for the sound of birds chirping in the sky and the distant rumbles of a lawn mower. Mrs Lucie Hoffman had opened her front door to collect the morning edition of the Star. Instead, she found a porcelain doll sitting on top of the paper on her doorstep, staring up at her. It had thick dark hair and glassy green eyes. That was when the screaming started. THE BLURB: What happens when ambit [...]

As the local courthouse burned in the small town of Colmstock in country Australia, the shock of the police and fire crew turned to desperation – there was someone inside and there would be no getting them out alive. Was it arson?As Rose Blakey’s time for moving out of the only home she’d known all her life moved closer, her desperation at the continued rejections from newspapers all over the country heightened. She had wanted to be a journalist for as long as she could remember. The waitr [...]

Anna Snoekstra has written a complex and riveting novel with a clearly manipulative and unlikeable protagonist.Straight up Rose starts to manipulate the reader. I initially felt sorry for her but the more I read the more I learned that she was selfish and unscrupulous.Set in a small country town where unemployment is high and drug use is on the increase you could feel the oppression. Rose’s only ambition is to become a journalist and leave Colmstock behind.As in “Only Daughter” Snoekstra h [...]

Living in a struggling little rural town in Australia, full of little secrets and some big lies, Rose Blakey hopes to escape by getting a journalist's cadetship in the city. So far she's had no luck so when strange events start to happen in her town she decides to make her own news story by writing for a local paper. What she doesn't realise is that she will cause a lot of fear and stir up a lot of trouble that will have major repercussions for the town.I really enjoyed Anna Snoekstra's second n [...]

“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places.”----Roald DahlAnna Snoekstra, an Australian author, has penned a riveting psychological thriller called, Little Secrets that is centered around a small Aussie town, where a female wannabe journalist lives amidst her unhappy family and the haunting memories of burning down of the courthouse with a kid inside it, but when porcelain dolls looking like [...]

3.5 Stars!Creepy, gritty, and exceptionally atmospheric!In this latest novel by Snoekstra, Little Secrets, she transports us to Colmstock, Australia, a small town not only devastated by economic depression but reeling from the destruction and tragedy caused by an arsonist with no conscience, and a potential predator who seems to be targeting the local children.The prose is somber and taut. The characters are deceptive, scheming, and self-involved. And the plot, which is ultimately about life, lo [...]

I think that over the last decade or so, Australian mystery & crime fiction has really come into its own, with authors using unique characteristics in their stories and creating a niche market for themselves that draws readers from all around the world for an Aussie interpretation of “noir”. For me, these are books that have a strong sense of place, using the harshness of nature and the remoteness of the setting to create tension and a constant undercurrent of menace and danger to the st [...]

A small town in Australia is experiencing shocking events. A fire which burnt down the courthouse and one of the businesses in town, was also responsible for the death of a young boy. And then dolls looking eerily like some of the children in town are left at various doorsteps. One arrives for young Laura at her home. The police of Colmstock are concerned about the implications of the dolls. Rose, who is desperate to get out of Colmstock, sees the dolls could be a big story. She elicits what inf [...]

*mrsbbookreviews.wordpressWith temperatures steadily rising here in Australia, Australian novelist Anna Snoekstra of Only Daughter fame returns with her second work of fiction, a sizzling summer crime thriller titled, Little Secrets.Colmstock is a small Australian town doing it tough. The local automotive factory has closed its doors, leaving behind a trail of debt and unemployment. Further despair comes to this tiny town when the local courthouse is burnt down by an arsonist. Even more devastat [...]

I received this via Giveaways in exchange for an honest review. All my opinions are my own. 😊---Interesting idea but ultimately didn't capture me fully. *shrugs*

This is a fantastic book! And it is an Aussie book so proud! The descriptions and the characters are so real that I could see it all happening while I was reading. The story of a small town and a girl with ambition that sometimes made her unpopular in town with the locals. A wonderful story A very big thank you to Netgalley and Harlequin Australia for an advance copy of this book to read and review

I really enjoyed Little Secrets by Anna Snoekstra, my first by this author.It was dark, gritty and handled the stifling atmosphere of a small town down on its luck so well. I could feel the hopelessness of it all.It opens with the courthouse and local store recently being set alight by an arsonist and a young boy being trapped and killed in the fire. Then creepy porcelain dolls appear on the doorstep of young girls in the town, strangely they look like the girls living in the respective houses.R [...]

I liked this book. Would I recommend it? I'm not so sure. It had a good ending but it took literally 65% into the book for anything exciting to happen. I considered DNF'ing but I stuck it out. I'm glad I did because I was already so far into the book and I liked the "tricky" ending. None of the characters were really very likable. And no happy endings here. But that ending different from other mystery thriller books.

3.5 StarsAnna Snoekstra returns following her dark and edgy debut,Only Daughter,with her second psychological suspense thriller, LITTLE SECRETS— an arsonist, a cop, porcelain dolls, a stranger, dark secrets, mystery, and a journalist are all part of a dying town. Rose Blakey is living in the small town of Colmstock, Australia. a small town. She is tired of the dead-end job at the Eamon’s Tavern Hotel and her dead-end life. After the car factory shut down the town had quickly lost its sense o [...]

Well I have discovered a new favorite author. What a great book. BUT be forewarned if you like mushy gushy all is well that ends well happily for ever and ever.This aint your book.This book was real and honest and makes you look at things and examine yourself. Who do you assume you know and judge them? What goes on behind closed door? How dishonest and backstabbing can hurt innocent people. Highly recommend this book.

I would like to thank Netgalley and HQ for an advance copy of Little Secrets, a psychological thriller set somewhere in Australia.Rose lives in Colmstock, a formerly prosperous mining town but now gone to seed, and dreams of escaping to the city and a career in journalism but dreams are all they are until someone starts leaving porcelain dolls on the doorstep for young girls and her reporting gets her a byline in a city newspaper.Little Secrets is not really my kind of novel and I struggled to g [...]

Last year, I read Only Daughter, the debut by Anna Snoekstra, and I absolutely loved it. I loved the narrative style, the dark tone and the creepy ending. It was a book that I continuously recommended. Needless to say, I was pretty excited to read Snoekstra's follow up with her sophomore novel, Little Secrets. This novel was completely different from Snoekstra’s previous novel and, to be completely honest, it was not what I was expecting at all. The novel opens in the wake of a tragedy. An ars [...]

After reading the prologue with a fire, I thought that this was going to be a really good book but after reading the first page from then on the story dipped for me. I read Only Daughter by Anna Snoekstra and enjoyed every page so I just couldn't get a copy quick enough of Little Secret. Although I didn't like reading Little Secret I definitely will be reading Anna's next book which I hope I will enjoy more. If you haven't read Only Daughter I recommend that book . As for Little Secret some read [...]

4.5 star, nearly a 5. This will be some task to review this book and so please be patient with me. There's a lot to say. This is one I truly recommend. First, I think its title is a misfit? This is about basics of "life management" and very little of anything in this book is truly secret, IMHO. The lies are not little/ small lies either- not to my own scales of emotional OR legal bases of "small". It's more about finding a life's work when you come out of a place or education which have given yo [...]

This is what I would call a pressure cooker story. Take an isolated and poor community, add some pressure, some heat, and some wild cards and see what happens. What happens is crazy. People think that big cities are dangerous, but small towns can be even more dangerous. When you are a tight community, the other becomes more and more of a threat to people. This story has some great characters, some sordid goings-on, and quite a few mysteries. Very enjoyable.

Rose Blakey is an aspiring journalist. She is desperate to escape the from the small Australian town in which she lives. Rejection after rejection mean she is stuck in what she sees as a dead-end waitressing job. This is a town is gripped by fear following an arson attack in which a local boy died and by the delivery of dolls to local children, dolls that spookily resemble their recipients. The atmosphere in the small town is suffocating and, as anonymous notes arrive and small incidents become [...]

Little Secrets is a story that will definitely make you think. Creepy doesn’t even describe the things that go on on this place, but it sure makes for a really good read.Colmstock, a small town in Australia where everyone pretty much know everyone. When the courthouse fire happened killing the boy inside the town was turned upside down, but something even more sinister is taking place. Porcelain dolls have been showing up the towns doorsteps that have little girls. These dolls look just like t [...]

Little Secrets was my first, and now, my last book by Ms. Snoekstra.This was a very easy review to write because everything about the book was so effing awful.The only takeaways I got from Little Secrets besides the dumb title is that the small town of Colmstock is full of:1. Homophobes and racists2. A sexual predator in the form of the loser cop who salivates over Rose, the main character, in all its disgusting imagery (Hi, sexual violence as a literary device - its been so long! NOT!!!)3. Poli [...]

There were times when Little Secrets was interesting and engaging, but at other times, I found the story line difficult to buy into. Many of the sub-plots showed promise (which is why I read the book to the end), but fizzled out becoming somewhat implausible with disappointing, unrealistic outcomes. The characters started out with the suggestion that they would develop into well rounded participants in the story, but ultimately turned out to be shallow, self-centred, unlikeable and difficult to [...]

The story was about two main plots; an arsonist and a could-be pedophile. Readers were given answered for both cases even though it was silly at best. But, there were conclusion, so I'll take that as a good sign.There were sub-plots introduced, mentioned once or twice before it was dropped without solid conclusion. That got me rolling my eyes.The writing flow gracefully and I couldn't stop reading. I knew from the reviews that the characters will be rotten and icky. And they were not lying. Rose [...]

Snoekstra's delivers another thriller that starts slow and punches you repeatedly in the last third of the book. The book follows Rose (small town girl working in a small town dive bar) on her quest to become a big-time journalist.

*Review copy received from publisherWhile slow-paced this unusual, slightly odd story set in a small Australian town is compelling. I loved the quirky characters.

3.5 starsSet in a slowly dying town in Australia, Little Secrets by Anna Snoekstra is an intriguing mystery that begins with arson and quickly moves to the creepy porcelain dolls being left for the townspeople's children.Rose Blakey's mom and stepfather are forcing her to move out of the family home and she is counting on a cadetship with a newspaper to help her realize her dream of becoming a journalist. In the meantime, her hometown of Colmstock is plagued by a series of fires and unfortunatel [...]

Little Secrets by Anna Snoekstra is a highly recommended thriller.In Colmstock, Australia, an arsonist has recently burned down the courthouse, killing a young boy who was inside. Rose Blakey is an aspiring journalist in Colmstock who just needs an opportunity to escape from the small town and make a name for herself. She's been given an ultimatum to move out of the family home by her stepfather, but she has nowhere to go, unless she can somehow manage to get a job writing in the city. Currently [...]