Unfortunately, it’s almost all “love-at-first-sight but with murder” nonsense from here on out. It felt right in place with the story so far. There was some great atmospheric horror with the abandoned Wickham Village, and the ending really packed a punch. They find Abigail dead and buried in a fresh graveyard plot… right next to the grave of Hester Goode! The Secret started off really strong with this little story. When Abigail never comes home, they go out looking. Jonathan has a bad feeling about Hester, but Ezra lets her go off playing. Abigail, the middle daughter, makes friends with a local girl named Hester.

It’s a nice house and the Goode’s won’t be coming back. Jonathan, the eldest son, tries to convince his father they should stay. This establishes that Ezra is a piece of shit and we shouldn’t feel bad for what eventually happens to him. Although Stine never explicitly says this, I think it’s worth noting the implication here that Ezra abuses his wife Jane. Ezra and his family take up residence in the Goode’s old house while Ezra plots how to find where they ran off to. They find out a plague swept through, and most of the townsfolk blame George Goode the no-good son of an actual witch. They arrive at a largely abandoned village of Wickham. Ezra Fier is now married with three kids, and he has dragged them all over the colonies in his quest to find the Goodes and get his revenge. It might not seem like much, but it has a big impact!

If you enjoy my blog, please consider liking my reviews on GoodReads. I just wish it felt as cohesive as the first. Overall, it accomplished its goal of setting things up nicely for the last book. It detracted from the otherwise excellent and creepy stuff. It seemed like the only thing that the women wanted was marriage, and the only thing that the men wanted was revenge. The love stories started to feel a bit stale. There were plenty of gruesome moments to enjoy, even though I was continuously frustrated by the motives of the characters. In fact, the 100-year jump in the middle of the book made it seem like maybe the saga was planned as two books and later got cut up into three.

The Secret continues the bloody rampage of the Fier family curse into a new century, but it starts to suffer from some classic middle-book problems.

The secret bedroom fear street