Season of Secrets
On 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
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
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
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
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
Sally Nicholls is simply an exceptionally talented writer, who writes beautifully. Her intelligent, warm fiction is honest and profound, complex yet accessible.
This is a beautiful story… Absolutely wonderful.
November 5, 2010 @ 3:03 am
Hey !
October 29, 2010 @ 11:03 am
Hey Sally ! I loved the book so much!!!
Can’t wait to read more of your books!!
October 27, 2010 @ 9:10 pm
“Ways to live forever” is an amazing book!
September 30, 2010 @ 1:12 am
Hey Sally,
I just finished reading your book ‘Ways to live forever’, it is truely an amazing book. I never thought I would enjoy a book so much just for a book report.(:
September 10, 2010 @ 7:38 am
🙂
September 10, 2010 @ 7:35 am
i loved your book ways to live.and i hope you continue a second part after sam reaches heaven.by akshay,mumbai,india.
September 8, 2010 @ 4:29 pm
Hi i really enjoyed reading season of sercerts. Will you ever read a second book ?
July 27, 2010 @ 7:40 pm
Just incredible, im 13 and i’ve read your book ways to live forever many times already, it makes me cry everytime, you put so much emotion into it. I love it and i’m hoping to read more of your amazing work. I have just bought your other book the season of secrets one and it looks good. I haven’t even read any of it yet 😀
Anyway i hope you write some more books soon because right now i’m having to read captain underpants to pass the time! haha 🙂
Thanks a whole load, your book helped me come off facebook alot. I felt like i just had to finish reading ways to live forever before i checked my notifications! Which is crazy because i was addicted at the time!
Live Long and Prosper xD
PEACE OUT 😀
xxx
June 15, 2010 @ 3:46 pm
Hello, I loved the book. But your first one was better. For once in my life I liked the book (ways to live forever) we read on school. Oh, and I’m dutch XD
May 9, 2010 @ 6:11 pm
shelby again! ways to live forever is a good book. i am from the usa but can speak spanish, hola cuma astas hi how are you. in spanish