In THE SECRETS INSIDE, Nick Riley is a controversial character who is likely to spark intense discussion. His wife Cheryl passed away in 1998 in a car accident, and his life has fallen apart ever since. His friend Christopher takes pity on him by allowing him to stay with their family. He is likely too pathetic for Chris to see him as a sexual threat against his daughter, Connie. Throw in the fact that Connie is often sidelined for her sister, and it makes perfect sense that her subsequent relationship with Nick would go unnoticed by her family.
The line between adolescence and adulthood is blurred with nuance in Katherine Tirado-Ryen’s new novel. One reader’s take on Connie’s situation may be extraordinarily different from another’s. For instance, Connie is often framed as an adult with full autonomy, which is technically true. However, as her sister Alison and best friend Dee Ramsey point out, there’s a massive power differential between a young woman having her first sexual experience and a middle-aged widower who’s friends with her father. Ironically, the two characters who warn Connie against Nick are the two whose influence make her most vulnerable: Dee makes Connie feel inexperienced at sex and dating, while Alison (who is 8 years older) makes Connie feel juvenile by comparison. This creates a strong foundation for a grieving man to take advantage of Connie—not because he’s evil, but because he’s vulnerable as well.
Connie’s crush on Nick develops naturally, and Tirado-Ryen peppers in a thorough amount of detail highlighting Nick’s depravity. Connie looks like his late wife, for example, and the reader will question how big a role this plays in his attraction to her. Sensory details are abundant, creating a visceral setting where the reader will feel present. This example is one of many: “I held my glass up to the chandelier, marveling at how the wine’s brick color paled to orange at the rim, and how it reflected soft splashes of red onto my hand.”
Katherine Tirado-Ryen’s novel excels at creating a vivid, relatable protagonist whose decisions are understandable even when you want her to make different ones. The book is confessional and gossipy, as if Connie is filling in the reader over lattes. The pacing is initially slow, and the exposition could have been tightened: the inciting incident crawls along in Chapter Seven when Nick arrives, and the first six chapters are comparatively underwhelming. Also, while Connie’s ostracization from her parents and her general loneliness are highlighted, the contrived scenarios to leave Connie and Nick alone together quickly become see-through. Ten pages of build-up leading to an obvious conclusion are not necessary—as when Connie asks every single character about taking a movie ticket, even though it’s immediately obvious that this is an excuse to throw Connie and Nick together unsupervised. However, once the story kicks off, there is nonstop drama and action until the jarring final act. The middle of the novel is much stronger than its beginning and conclusion, but the ending is satisfying enough to be worthwhile.
The story’s conclusion could have been less ambiguous, but understanding readers will see this as a chilling ending rather than an incomplete one. Connie knows what the warning signs are, as she sees them in another couple’s marriage, but that doesn’t make her able to see them in her own life. This particular dynamic is essential to understanding why people get into (and stay in) abusive relationships despite allegedly knowing better, which Tirado-Ryen explores with expertise and care. Younger readers, however—even those in their twenties—should take great care to read about domestic violence and abusive relationships before picking up this book.
Katherine Tirado-Ryen illuminates a warning sign against predatory older men in her compulsively readable novel, THE SECRETS INSIDE.
~Leah Block for IndieReader