Little Secrets by Jennifer Hillier
Every mothers nightmare. You let go of your 4 year old's hand for just a second and seconds later, he's gone. And NO ONE can find him.
"Little Secrets" is the newly released thriller by Jennifer Hillier and when I tell you this novel lives up to the hype...…..IT.LIVES.UP.TO.THE.HYPE!!!
MY RATING :
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ /5
Marin Machado has it all. Built her own salon up to be one of the high class salons to go to. "You can google her name and photos of the three biggest celebrity Jennifers ---Lopez, Lawrence and Aniston--would come up as women she's worked on personally. She's loaded rich, and she married to her college sweetheart, Derek. Then one day, her whole world falls apart.
One the last Saturday before Christmas ,while doing some last minute shopping at Pike Place Market in Seattle, she lets go of her son Sebastian's hand and when she looks back up, he's gone. Without a trace. Of course, people see her get frantic. Nobody in this entire marketplace has seen him. How could no one have seen this little boy wearing this distinctive white sweater with brown reindeer?Where did he go? Security gets the surviallnce and finds that he left with.....Santa?? What?
15 months later, and Sebastian still has not come home.
I found myself crying over this. I have a 4 year old, and the grief this mother is feeling is something I never want to experience and wouldn't wish that upon my worst enemy.
So, one day Marin gets a email from a PI that she hired to meet up with hear at her office in 2 hours. Could she know where Sebastian is? Marin goes and meets with Vanessa, the PI, but this meeting isn't about Sebastian, Vanessa tells her that while she was investigating all possible options for Sebastian's disappearance, she discovered her husband, Derek has been having an affair with a 24 year art college student named McKenzie.
How devastating! Not only does she have to deal with the guilt of letting go of little boy's hand and him disappearing, but now this? Really, Derek? You have to go and cheat? Low blow, dude.
So, at this point in the novel , it starts changing points of views every few chapters between Marin and McKenzie. I really like when authors do this cuz I feel like I can get a more in depth view on what's really goin on.
McKenzie is from a small town and is literally alone. Her mother is in a nursing home with bad Alzheimers that she has to pay for along with her college and living expenses. She has never really been in love. She has a guy she is on/off with when she goes back to town, JR . He's always been around and sorta like a best friend to her.
So, Marin goes to best friend Sal's bar that he bougtht while they were still in college. Another thing I should mention about Sal is thtt him and Marin used to date in college, and he still thinks of her as "the girl that got away." Marin goes to the bar and is telling Sal all about what the PI told her and gets shit faced drunk and then starts mentioning that she wishes she could be gone, killed.
Well, Sal knows a guy that can take care of McKenzie. A fixer, if you will. Of course, Sal doesn't think that Marin is serious.
Meanwhile, over in McKenzie's world, you can sense that the relationship with Derek is going sour. She has done this before. We start to get to know McKenzie a little better and learn that is not her first relationship like this. She calls herself a "Professional Girlfriend". She preys on rich, married men , starts these relationships with them and when they are ready to all it quits, she plays the victim and has them pay her a "severance" so that she will go away. Her last relationship paid her 50k!! After their last hookup, Derek leaves her 5k on the dresser and texts her later and says that hes done with the relationship and that he cant do it anymore.
Marin has downloaded the "Shadow" app per the advice of Vanessa and when she gets the messages between Derek and McKenzie of him trying to break it off and then him taking it all back, she decides she's had enough. She tells Sal to set up the meeting with the fixer.
The meeting is set up in a sleazy college diner at midnight and this is where she meets the fixer, Julian. He lets her know that it will be 250k and once she whiles him the money, that's it. She wont get it back if she decides to call it off. Of course, it will take a few weeks after the transaction is made to a "charity" that the deed will be done. She has until 9am the next morning.
By 9AM the next morning, the money is wired.
Derek finally comes to his senses and calls off the relationship with McKenzie. He still doesn't know that she knows about McKenzie because A.) Marin hasn't told him anything, and B.) Derek doesn't now that Marin ever hired a PI.
Interesting, isn't it?
McKenzie is furious. She isn't just going to get 5k from the relationship when he's worth wayyyy more than her previous guy. So, after Derek calls it off with her, he takes Marin on a romantic getaway for their 20th wedding anniversary. McKenzie, still hurt and pissed, gets drunk and proceeds to BREAK IN to their home. She doesn't really do anything. She takes a few pictures for he 50k Instagram followers of Marin's bathroom and closet and with a pair of these gorgeous Christian Louboutin'.
She leaves and gets this overwhelming feeling that someone is following her. She turns around and see Julian and he says......
"Hey, Kenzie. JR with you?
"Julian, you scared me. No, hes not with me."
WACK!! He knocks her out. But wait....how does Julian know JR...….
SPOILERS AHEAD!
If you haven't read this book and you still want to, STOP READING!! SPOLIERS AHEAD!!!
So, it turns out...….PLOT TWIST....Sal is JR, and JR is Sal. So, this man has known both sides of this whole thing.
When McKenzie gets knocked out, she wakes up with JR at his mothers house. Hes pacing back and forth because he had sent a text to Derek threatening to kill McKenzie if he doesn't pay 250k. Man, that number sounds familiar. Derek agrees to pay it and gets the money together to meet the man.....who later ends up being JULIAN! And Julian isn't answering. He ran off with the money and didn't give Sal his cut.
Now, over at the Machado house, Vanessa shows back up and tells Marin a lot more things she had discovered about McKenzie. She tells Marin that she is linked to Sal and that Sal could be linked to Julian. Marin comes clean after feeling guilty about paying to have McKenzie killed. She had already called Sal to have it called off. But what Vanessa tells Marin is that Julian was never going to do it. They were working together.
Just then , Derek gets home and Vanessa leaves before he sees her because remember he doesn't know that Marin hired. When Marin starts telling him about the affair, he comes clean about that and the fact that about a month after Sebastian went missing, he got a ransom that these men wanted 250k for them to give Sebastian back. He didn't tell the cops, Marin or the FBI because he thought he could handle on his own. He goes and leaves the money but doesn't come back with Sebastian. Hes not there where hes supposed to be. He then gets a note later saying that he was too late and that Sebastian is dead.
SEBASTIAN IS DEAD.
I broke. This man has had to grieve by himself the death of his son and he could have saved him , but it was his fault he was dead. Derek and Marin grieve but then she says she is going to go see Sal to get her answers.
She goes outside to find Vanessa waiting for her to take them both to Sal's mothers house. There has to be more.
Meanwhile, remember when I told you that Sal was pacing and couldn't get ahold of Julian? So , now he's looking for his fathers gun. His mother, Lorena has already figured out a lot of what he is doing and what he is up to and when he gets the gun, she tells McKenzie to go downstairs to the wine cellar so she can sort this out with him. After some pushback , McKenzie finally goes.
She goes down, still kind of confused with the whole thing, as I am too. She starts heading down and she realizes the wine cellar is warm. Isn't a wine cellar supposed to be kind of cool? And she hears a TV...a TV?? She gets closer and sees toys, in particular a toy with ..with ..a teddy bear wearing a …..WHITE SWEATER WITH A BROWN REINDEER.
SEBASTIAN
"Are you my mommy? Grandma Lorena said that my mommy was coming to get me."
Doesn't that just break your heart? Sal orchested this whole kidnapping because he needed money. WTF
So, by the time Marin, Derek and Vanessa get to Lorena's house, there's already cops and ambulances. You can only fear the worst, right?
So, when Sal got the gun , Lorena tried to wrestle it away from him and ended up with even more of a brain injury than she already had and she got grazed with a bullet in the arm, so she has been taken to the hospital.
Upon getting to the farmhouse, Marin gets this overwhelming feeling that Sebastian is at this property and is not leaving until she gets her answers.
Sal locks himself up in the upstairs bedroom and doesn't want to talk to anybody else but Marin. She agrees to talk to him , with the police listening and he confesses everything. Funny thing is, she tells him if he needed money so bad, she would've just given it to him if he asked. He didn't have to go through all this and cause so much pain in the world around him. Then they see a spark in the bedroom and a gunshot and down goes Sal's body.
After what seems like forever, the cops come out with SEBASTIAN!!! He's hesitant at first but once he realizes who Marin is, he runs to her .
MOMMY!!!!!!
Bring on the waterworks. He's safe. He's in Marin's arms. Turns out that Sal took him and told Lorena that Marin was in a abusive relationship and that she needed someone to look after Sebastian as she was trying to get out of the relationship. Lorena took very good care of Sebastian, which I cried over.
McKenzie wasn't charged with anything because they saw her as a "victim" and she goes back to living her poor life.
A few weeks later, once things started going back to normal, Marin goes and visits McKenzie at the coffee shop she works at. She pulls her to the side and confesses that weeks ago she was in a very dark place and even paid Julian to kill her. She quickly came to her senses and called it off , but she needs to help herself clear her conscience and tells her that she is wants to make amends and gives her the 250k that Derek was going to pay Julian for her ransom. Marin needs to still be able to sleep at night. She also gives her a little something for being so kind to Sebastian in the wine cellar.
The Louboutin shoes she admired. After that Marin walks away.
Wowwww…….not the ending I was expecting. I am sooooo glad that it worked out the way it did and that Sebastian is alive and back home with his parents. Have you read this? What did you think? I have to say this can really be one of my favorites that I've read so far. Tell me what you thought in the comments below.
Until next time.....☮
So, one day Marin gets a email from a PI that she hired to meet up with hear at her office in 2 hours. Could she know where Sebastian is? Marin goes and meets with Vanessa, the PI, but this meeting isn't about Sebastian, Vanessa tells her that while she was investigating all possible options for Sebastian's disappearance, she discovered her husband, Derek has been having an affair with a 24 year art college student named McKenzie.
How devastating! Not only does she have to deal with the guilt of letting go of little boy's hand and him disappearing, but now this? Really, Derek? You have to go and cheat? Low blow, dude.
So, at this point in the novel , it starts changing points of views every few chapters between Marin and McKenzie. I really like when authors do this cuz I feel like I can get a more in depth view on what's really goin on.
McKenzie is from a small town and is literally alone. Her mother is in a nursing home with bad Alzheimers that she has to pay for along with her college and living expenses. She has never really been in love. She has a guy she is on/off with when she goes back to town, JR . He's always been around and sorta like a best friend to her.
So, Marin goes to best friend Sal's bar that he bougtht while they were still in college. Another thing I should mention about Sal is thtt him and Marin used to date in college, and he still thinks of her as "the girl that got away." Marin goes to the bar and is telling Sal all about what the PI told her and gets shit faced drunk and then starts mentioning that she wishes she could be gone, killed.
Well, Sal knows a guy that can take care of McKenzie. A fixer, if you will. Of course, Sal doesn't think that Marin is serious.
Meanwhile, over in McKenzie's world, you can sense that the relationship with Derek is going sour. She has done this before. We start to get to know McKenzie a little better and learn that is not her first relationship like this. She calls herself a "Professional Girlfriend". She preys on rich, married men , starts these relationships with them and when they are ready to all it quits, she plays the victim and has them pay her a "severance" so that she will go away. Her last relationship paid her 50k!! After their last hookup, Derek leaves her 5k on the dresser and texts her later and says that hes done with the relationship and that he cant do it anymore.
Marin has downloaded the "Shadow" app per the advice of Vanessa and when she gets the messages between Derek and McKenzie of him trying to break it off and then him taking it all back, she decides she's had enough. She tells Sal to set up the meeting with the fixer.
The meeting is set up in a sleazy college diner at midnight and this is where she meets the fixer, Julian. He lets her know that it will be 250k and once she whiles him the money, that's it. She wont get it back if she decides to call it off. Of course, it will take a few weeks after the transaction is made to a "charity" that the deed will be done. She has until 9am the next morning.
By 9AM the next morning, the money is wired.
Derek finally comes to his senses and calls off the relationship with McKenzie. He still doesn't know that she knows about McKenzie because A.) Marin hasn't told him anything, and B.) Derek doesn't now that Marin ever hired a PI.
Interesting, isn't it?
McKenzie is furious. She isn't just going to get 5k from the relationship when he's worth wayyyy more than her previous guy. So, after Derek calls it off with her, he takes Marin on a romantic getaway for their 20th wedding anniversary. McKenzie, still hurt and pissed, gets drunk and proceeds to BREAK IN to their home. She doesn't really do anything. She takes a few pictures for he 50k Instagram followers of Marin's bathroom and closet and with a pair of these gorgeous Christian Louboutin'.
She leaves and gets this overwhelming feeling that someone is following her. She turns around and see Julian and he says......
"Hey, Kenzie. JR with you?
"Julian, you scared me. No, hes not with me."
WACK!! He knocks her out. But wait....how does Julian know JR...….
SPOILERS AHEAD!
If you haven't read this book and you still want to, STOP READING!! SPOLIERS AHEAD!!!
So, it turns out...….PLOT TWIST....Sal is JR, and JR is Sal. So, this man has known both sides of this whole thing.
When McKenzie gets knocked out, she wakes up with JR at his mothers house. Hes pacing back and forth because he had sent a text to Derek threatening to kill McKenzie if he doesn't pay 250k. Man, that number sounds familiar. Derek agrees to pay it and gets the money together to meet the man.....who later ends up being JULIAN! And Julian isn't answering. He ran off with the money and didn't give Sal his cut.
Now, over at the Machado house, Vanessa shows back up and tells Marin a lot more things she had discovered about McKenzie. She tells Marin that she is linked to Sal and that Sal could be linked to Julian. Marin comes clean after feeling guilty about paying to have McKenzie killed. She had already called Sal to have it called off. But what Vanessa tells Marin is that Julian was never going to do it. They were working together.
Just then , Derek gets home and Vanessa leaves before he sees her because remember he doesn't know that Marin hired. When Marin starts telling him about the affair, he comes clean about that and the fact that about a month after Sebastian went missing, he got a ransom that these men wanted 250k for them to give Sebastian back. He didn't tell the cops, Marin or the FBI because he thought he could handle on his own. He goes and leaves the money but doesn't come back with Sebastian. Hes not there where hes supposed to be. He then gets a note later saying that he was too late and that Sebastian is dead.
SEBASTIAN IS DEAD.
I broke. This man has had to grieve by himself the death of his son and he could have saved him , but it was his fault he was dead. Derek and Marin grieve but then she says she is going to go see Sal to get her answers.
She goes outside to find Vanessa waiting for her to take them both to Sal's mothers house. There has to be more.
Meanwhile, remember when I told you that Sal was pacing and couldn't get ahold of Julian? So , now he's looking for his fathers gun. His mother, Lorena has already figured out a lot of what he is doing and what he is up to and when he gets the gun, she tells McKenzie to go downstairs to the wine cellar so she can sort this out with him. After some pushback , McKenzie finally goes.
She goes down, still kind of confused with the whole thing, as I am too. She starts heading down and she realizes the wine cellar is warm. Isn't a wine cellar supposed to be kind of cool? And she hears a TV...a TV?? She gets closer and sees toys, in particular a toy with ..with ..a teddy bear wearing a …..WHITE SWEATER WITH A BROWN REINDEER.
SEBASTIAN
"Are you my mommy? Grandma Lorena said that my mommy was coming to get me."
Doesn't that just break your heart? Sal orchested this whole kidnapping because he needed money. WTF
So, by the time Marin, Derek and Vanessa get to Lorena's house, there's already cops and ambulances. You can only fear the worst, right?
So, when Sal got the gun , Lorena tried to wrestle it away from him and ended up with even more of a brain injury than she already had and she got grazed with a bullet in the arm, so she has been taken to the hospital.
Upon getting to the farmhouse, Marin gets this overwhelming feeling that Sebastian is at this property and is not leaving until she gets her answers.
Sal locks himself up in the upstairs bedroom and doesn't want to talk to anybody else but Marin. She agrees to talk to him , with the police listening and he confesses everything. Funny thing is, she tells him if he needed money so bad, she would've just given it to him if he asked. He didn't have to go through all this and cause so much pain in the world around him. Then they see a spark in the bedroom and a gunshot and down goes Sal's body.
After what seems like forever, the cops come out with SEBASTIAN!!! He's hesitant at first but once he realizes who Marin is, he runs to her .
MOMMY!!!!!!
Bring on the waterworks. He's safe. He's in Marin's arms. Turns out that Sal took him and told Lorena that Marin was in a abusive relationship and that she needed someone to look after Sebastian as she was trying to get out of the relationship. Lorena took very good care of Sebastian, which I cried over.
McKenzie wasn't charged with anything because they saw her as a "victim" and she goes back to living her poor life.
A few weeks later, once things started going back to normal, Marin goes and visits McKenzie at the coffee shop she works at. She pulls her to the side and confesses that weeks ago she was in a very dark place and even paid Julian to kill her. She quickly came to her senses and called it off , but she needs to help herself clear her conscience and tells her that she is wants to make amends and gives her the 250k that Derek was going to pay Julian for her ransom. Marin needs to still be able to sleep at night. She also gives her a little something for being so kind to Sebastian in the wine cellar.
The Louboutin shoes she admired. After that Marin walks away.
Wowwww…….not the ending I was expecting. I am sooooo glad that it worked out the way it did and that Sebastian is alive and back home with his parents. Have you read this? What did you think? I have to say this can really be one of my favorites that I've read so far. Tell me what you thought in the comments below.
Until next time.....☮
Next book:
A Good Marriage by Kimberly McCreight
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