Family Secrets in Devon, Scotland and Iceland – Tracy Buchanan

Submitted: 29th July 2024

Tracy Buchanan takes you on a journey of family secrets…

From the beaches of Devon, via a cosy Scottish lodge in the Highlands to the icefields of Iceland, this is a book where the locations match the story and vice versa. There’s a sense of feeling lost, adrift, trapped alone by family secrets and the desolate locations match this well. One of the characters is a wildlife photographer too so lots of lovely animals to ‘look at’

Map of locations in The Family Secret

Tracy Buchanan The Family secret

Map of locations in The Family Secret

So for a Mystery set in several desolate and cold locations– Tracy Buchanan’s The Family Secret is the one you need…

Setting: Devon beach, a nice lodge in the Scottish Highlands and the ice fields of Iceland!

Map of locations in The Family Secret

Bookreview

Map of locations in The Family Secret

A book where the story matches the locations perfectly and vice versa? From a frosty beach in Devon to the icy landscapes of Iceland via the rough terrain of Scotland, this is a story about secrets, finding out about your past, discovering who you are and where you belong…plus much much more.

Two timelines and two women separated by them. Gwyneth in 1989 allows you to see so many sights due to her work as a wildlife-documentary-maker . Then there’s Amber who rescues a young girl who has lost her memory and is found wandering on a Devon beach in December. Amber then goes on a journey to try and help the girl find out who she is.

The threads of the story and the various locations will seem at first to be far apart from each other but the more you read, the more you see the threads of history and family pull them tighter and tighter. But wait, is that a web of lies forming too? It’s a plot you find yourself getting further and further involved in…and not sure how it all will mesh together.

Map of locations in The Family Secret

I particularly loved the inclusion of animals in the story – those in their natural habitat such as the seals of Iceland. The setting of Scotland was claustrophobic and creepy (that family!!, the loch!) and where it all started on that desolate Devon beach. There’s something really lonely and desolate about a beach in winter so the locations really captured the mood of the book and the characters well.

Some fascinating family dynamics in this book. A good mystery to find out who that girl on the beach is. The whole story comes full circle in a nice way – you really don’t know when and where those secrets from the past are going to wash up!