Published: 2017, Penguin Random House Genre: Fiction Themes: Small town America, poverty, secrets My rating (out of 5): ❤❤❤❤ Secrets. Secrets from the past or the present. Secrets carried like a stone in a shoe, unseen but always there rubbing, rubbing and not going away. Elizabeth Strout exposes the carefully hidden secrets kept by some apparently nice people from the rural town of Amgash, Illinois, and by the time you get to the end of this novel you will be watching your friends and neighbours wondering what they might be hiding from you. We all like to make wild assumptions about people (well that is what gossip is for, surely?) but what if all that secret stuff came tumbling out? How would they cope and how would it change them? The secrets in this book range from heartbreaking to downright horrible and the reader is a voyeur of the unfolding events. I could almost hear my mother's voice warning me to 'Stop gawping and come alo...