The Secrets They Kept, Jenny Lynch
Publication date 7 March 2024
RRP $38.00, PB, 296pp
ISBN: 978-1-7385969-9-7
The psychic had a curious message for Helena. She said: ‘You are not who you think you are.’
The Secrets They Kept is the story of a young woman’s quest to discover the truth about her mother’s unexplained death – and her own identity.
Helena Anderson was three years old when she lost her mother in 1967. But her efforts to learn anything about the mysterious Eve or the ‘shocking accident’ that presumably claimed her life are met with tight-lipped evasions from her secretive, God-fearing family. Helena knows there is something she is not being told.
She suspects it is something terrible.
Jenny Lynch is a former editor of the NZ Woman's Weekly. She has also been an actor, photographic model and a Playboy bunny.
She has lived and worked in the USA, Canada and Australia and is the author of four non-fiction books including a fashion history, Ready To Wear: The changing shape of New Zealand fashion and a memoir Under the Covers: Secrets of a Magazine Editor. The Secrets They Kept is her first work of fiction.
Jenny's journalistic career spanned more than 30 years. A host of interviews – from celebrities to psychics – gave her insights into the vagaries of human behaviour that are reflected in the characters in the pages of her novel. So, too, did a six-month 'adventure' at Melbourne's "The Playboy", a nightclub run by a shady underworld figure.
Before joining the Weekly in 1976 as assistant editor to legendary Jean Wishart and later taking over the reins herself she was a feature writer on the Weekly News, Sunday Herald and Thursday magazine. Jenny is now a sought-after public speaker on subjects such as the golden years of journalism, the hits and misses of 20th century fashion, and the peculiarities of early 20th century magazine advertising.
Jenny was educated at Epsom Girls Grammar in Auckland and Moorhead Senior High and Concordia College, in Minnesota, USA.
She lives in Auckland with her husband Dr Gavin Ellis, a former editor-in-chief of the New Zealand Herald.