The Secret Between Us by Barbara Delinsky ~ Book Review

After picking her teenage daughter up from a party one night, Deborah and her daughter Grace are in a discussion as Grace is driving.  The rain that had started earlier is now a full onslaught and it is dark and neither Grace or Deborah see the man running on the road until they have hit him.  To protect her daughter, Deborah sends Grace home to be with her younger brother whom she left at home while she waits for the police.  When the police arrive, Deborah through omission, lets the police believe it was she that was driving taking the blame for hitting the man and justifying to herself  that her daughter doesn't need the stress of all the questions and dealing with police and the accident on her driving record. Because she is a doctor and has good standing in the community Deborah thinks it will quickly blow over but when things take a turn and her lies get bigger and deeper and start to involve Grace anyway, Deborah must face that she sees a change in Grace that starts to concern her and starts to eat away at the strong bond they used to have no matter how she tries to brush it off as Grace needing time to process the accident.  As Grace pulls further and further away from her, Deborah must face the fact that her "little" white lie had so much bigger consequences than she ever imagined and the compounding lies might just destroy them.

This was a really good story that explored family dynamics when there is a secret that needs to be kept.  The relationship between Grace and Deborah was close but in the seconds it took to make a bad choice for all the right reasons on Deborah's part, both Mother and daughter end up facing consequences they never thought would happen.  It looked at the heavy pressure of keeping such a thing secret and the toll it ends up taking on self worth, relationships and family and even on moving forward.  This story, though an older one, is still relevant today and would foster great discussions in a book club.  

I gave it a 9/10

Reading Challenge Goals met:  Read Your Shelf October prompt "a book with the word secret in the title"