Season of Secrets

Seasons of secrets

ExtractOn a wild and stormy night Molly runs away from her grandparents’ house. Her dad has sent her to live there until he Sorts Things Out at home.

In the howling darkness, Molly sees a desperate figure running for his life from a terrifying midnight hunt. He has come to help her. But why? And who is he?
“Season of Secrets” weaves the tale of a heartbroken child and an age-old legend into a haunting story of love, healing and strange magic.

“Names are important. Everyone has one, except really tiny babies maybe, or stray dogs, or people who’ve forgotten who they are. And even stray dogs and people with amnesia have names. They’ve just forgotten them.”

About Seasons of Secrets

daffodils

Spring

The roots of this novel come from the story of the green man, who is the pagan god of summer. A friend told me this story, and I was fascinated by the idea of a person so powerful that he can create summer across a whole world, but who is also incredibly vulnerable, because in order for winter to come, he must be killed.

I wanted to tell his story, but I wanted the story to be based in real life, and to have some relevance to a modern child. I decided to use his cycle of death and rebirth to represent the grief-story of a child whose mother has just died. Like winter, grief isn’t something that happens once and then goes away forever. But I wanted to show that hope does come back. And after writing Ways to Live Forever, I wanted this book to end happily.

summer

Summer

Like Ways to Live Forever, Season of Secrets has a lot of things which come from real life. The reason Molly lives
with her grandparents over a shop is because when my father was a child, he lived with his great aunt and uncle over a newsagent’s. I never knew my father, but the way my mum described his childhood – the kind, old-fashioned couple who let him sleep in their bed because it was the warmest place in the flat – always made it sound like such a cosy, safe place to be.

A lot of the plans Molly and Emily have are for things my friends and I also wanted to do when I was a child. I remember reading Noel Streatfield’s A Vicarage Family and being very impressed that she’d captured that wonderful feeling of possibility – and also our tendency to spend our time planning rather than actually doing.
I’m pleased to say that I managed to get some of my things done.

Autumn

Autumn

Molly is a harder character to write about than Sam, for several reasons. Sam doesn’t like to talk about being sad – he just gives you the space and lets you fill in the details. But Molly is much more emotionally-driven than Sam is and she spends a lot of autumn and winter feeling very sad.
My first drafts had a lot of chapters with Molly moaning about her mum or how much she misses her cat. I took most of these out because they depressed me. But I then had to work with Molly’s need to tell you about how she’s feeling without letting it take up all of the book.
Season of Secrets works like Ways to Live Forever in reverse. Both are books of two halves, with each half having a very different tone. Both have a significant event which happens somewhere in the middle and changes everything.

winter

Winter

The sad story in this book – the dead mother and the absent father – comes from a book I read written by a woman
who looked after foster children. She once cared for a family of six children after their mother died and their father wasn’t able to have them. After a year, the father remarried and the children went back home.

Molly & Hannah

I originally wanted to write a book about those six children, but I hit two problems. Firstly, I’m better at stories that are centred around one character and secondly, I didn’t really have enough plot for a whole book. In the end I took the interesting bit of their story – how do you cope with a father who obviously loves you, but who abandons you? – and gave it to Molly and Hannah.

Reviews for Season of Secrets

It’s a simple story, told simply, but it’s dealing with some complicated and intense emotional issues and it does it in a tremendously accessible way

theBookBag

Sally Nicholls is simply an exceptionally talented writer, who writes beautifully. Her intelligent, warm fiction is honest and profound, complex yet accessible.

loveReading4Kids

This is a beautiful story… Absolutely wonderful.

Bookwitch

77 Comments

  1. hayley
    December 16, 2009 @ 6:14 pm

    hello im 14 and im wondering if season of secret is a bit too young for me, i like meg cabot and kate cann and lots of other authors but is this book a bit too young for me

    (i don’t know if this is very clear lol x)
    thanku

    Reply

  2. scarth
    December 1, 2009 @ 6:55 pm

    hi, i love season of secrets!!! i really wish there was a second book for it as it was amazing, i like a lot of books but yours is far the best. its the first time i cried at the end of a book:) i really loved it when Molly met the green man in the woods when he was a boy and when they dance at the end. i read the book straight though and couldn’t put it down and its still in my head now:D its the best book in the world to me and i really REALLY love it. i hope you right another season of secrets with Molly and the green man, i dont really know how to explain it but it was the best story and it would really be good if you wrote another and im sure that loads of other people want another season of secrets as well:D anyway cya from scarth

    Reply

  3. Miss Evie
    November 14, 2009 @ 10:23 am

    I LOVE THIS BOOK!!!
    i read more than 150 pages in 2 nights that its that good!
    Sally,could you please write some more books like this one because you are such a great author!
    thanks.
    From Eve

    Reply

  4. Sally
    October 25, 2009 @ 3:25 am

    Hi im 10 and I read Ways to Live Forever and loved it. I’m gonna read the secret seasons soon cant wait!!!!!

    Reply

  5. Sally
    October 25, 2009 @ 3:22 am

    Hi im 10 and I read Ways To Live Forever and thought it was so touching and im gonna read The Season of Secrets!CANT WAIT

    Reply

  6. Manasi
    October 16, 2009 @ 5:23 am

    Hi Sally!
    “Season Of Secrets” is damn good! I loved “Ways To Live Forever”!!!
    Hope that your book 3 will also be that good!!! I’ve read “Ways To Live Forever” manyyyy times!!! I am a big fan of your’s.
    Thanks for your help! I’ve got it!!
    Manasi

    Reply

  7. gorgeous
    September 24, 2009 @ 10:49 am

    im a big fan of your book i read this book about 20 times i know thats a lot but it was so good thats why i read it about 20 times

    Reply

  8. Apurva
    September 9, 2009 @ 10:25 am

    Hi Sally! I am Apurva studying in 8th grade. I ordered your book, “Season of Secrets” through Scholastic in the school and got it yesterday. I am reading the book and am about to reach ch. 15, “Dad”; as I am writing this comment. This book is pretty interesting. I noticed that some of the characters’ names in the book(Hannah, Oliver, Emily) have been taken from Hannah Montana. Why did you make Hannah a negative character? Anyway, this book is sweet and my friends are reading it too!
    P.S
    You are an awesome author!

    Reply

  9. beaver
    August 31, 2009 @ 3:45 pm

    Hi i am ten and i read ways to live forever, yesterday begining to end in like three hours. It was really good.
    I kinda liked and disliked the ending.
    Thank you for writing it.

    Reply

  10. Manasi
    August 19, 2009 @ 4:52 pm

    Hi!! Sally!! i’m Manasi. I loved “Ways To live Forever”!!!! It was very touching. I was glued to the book & had got many scoldings on day I read it because I was just glued to the book and doing nothing else!!!It IS one of the best book I’ve ever read!!!! I’m very happy to hear that “Season Of Secrets” is released. I am trying to buy it as soon as I can & read it. I am veryy excited about it after reading “Ways To Live Forever”….Keep on writing such great books!!!!! Congratulations!!!!

    Reply

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