The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets

Eva Rice, daughter of the famed lyricist Tim Rice, has written a captivating and wonderfully stylized novel about a group of friends in postwar London’s glamorous and daring young society. With mannered prose dripping in the charm of 1950s London, TheLost Art of Keeping Secrets centers around Penelope, the wide-eyed daughter of a legendary beauty, Talitha, who is unable to move beyond the loss of her charmed husband to the war. Penelope, with her mother and brother, struggles to maintain their vast and crumbling ancestral home—and the lifestyle to which they have grown accustomed—while postwar London spins toward the next decade’s cultural revolution. Penelope wants nothing more than to fall in love. When her new best friend, Charlotte, a free spirit in the young society set, drags Penelope into vibrant young London with all of its grand parties, she sets in motion great change for them all. Charlotte’s mysterious and attractive brother Harry plots to use Penelope to make his American ex-girlfriend jealous, with unforeseen consequences, until a dashing, wealthy American movie producer arrives with what might be the key to Penelope’s—and her family’s—future happiness. Vibrant, witty, and filled with vivid historical detail, The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets is an utterly unique debut novel about a time and place just slipping into history.