Carla Buckley's The Deepest Secret explores the limits to which a mother will go to protect her child. Driving one rainy night, Eve looks down at a text message and hits what she initially thinks is a deer. When she stops, she discovers she's killed Amy, the 11-year-old daughter of her next-door neighbor and best friend. With no witnesses, Eve has a difficult choice. She can tell the truth and go to jail, or live free with the guilt.
Eve's family is already strained to the breaking point. For years, her life has centered on protecting her now 14-year-old son, Tyler, whose affliction with the fatal light sensitivity condition xeroderma pigmentosum makes a normal childhood impossible.
Unbeknownst to Eve, her husband, David, feels disconnected from her and has grown closer with a young female coworker. Sixteen-year-old daughter Melissa is acting out dangerously, knowing her mother's total focus on Tyler will leave her free from parental intervention. Only Tyler knows about his sister's behavior--and Tyler has secrets of his own. Forced by his disease to remain in his light-proofed room during daylight hours and attend school via Skype, Tyler knows he'll never learn to drive, never meet a girl; according to the statistics, he probably won't even live to 20. Restless, Tyler sneaks out and roams the neighborhood at night, discovering that every household has a hidden pain or secret infraction.
Though often heart-wrenching, the extensive emotional development Buckley packs into a world of everyday life shadowed by nightmare will leave readers wondering how far they might go for their loved ones. --Jaclyn Fulwood, youth services manager at Latah County Library District and blogger at Infinite Reads