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.
July 16, 2013 @ 4:08 pm
I love your book ” WAYS TO LIVE FOREVER” It is really the most inspirational book I have ever read.It is really god something different from fiction I’m eagerly waiting for another book like this…
July 13, 2013 @ 4:32 am
heyy sally ur books r to gus ….they r ossom….i luv reading ur books
June 20, 2013 @ 9:30 pm
My favorite book love it
May 30, 2013 @ 5:25 pm
Ways to live forever is my all time FAVOURITE book
ever
EVER
and it’s so sad but so sweet, and I felt like I was there beside Sam the whole way.
And season of secrets is really good too- they are both totally worth the read
April 9, 2013 @ 11:07 pm
Sally, your book “Ways to live forever” is a touching book with lots of feelings and emotions. I love this book so much! This book is amazing I can’t even describe!!!!!!!!!!!
March 7, 2013 @ 6:06 pm
i love your books sally, i love the way you really highlighted the way the characters felt the way you changed the atmosphere of the story. cant wait for you to make more,
make more plz :0 i’ll be waiting for more great books
January 5, 2013 @ 8:01 am
hey sally i just want to say that u r a superb writer .keep writing and i will keep reading.
November 23, 2012 @ 5:48 pm
hi sally
wow this book is so good and it made me laugh and it made me cry.
from katty
x
October 5, 2012 @ 7:00 pm
hey sally i’m big fan of urs ur books r really toching n realistic…….. write back soon
August 31, 2012 @ 5:56 pm
I finished Season of Secrets around five minutes ago. Its a fantastic book. You really feel the heartbreak for Molly. The ending was like a cliff-hanger! You should publish a second book about what happens next!