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    The Secretary: A Novel
    The Secretary: A Novel
    The Secretary: A Novel
    Audiobook8 hours

    The Secretary: A Novel

    Written by Renée Knight

    Narrated by Victoria Hamilton

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    Renée Knight follows up her international sensation Disclaimer with this shivery tale of psychological suspense, featuring a character as disturbing and compelling as Mrs. Danvers in Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca.

    From her first day as Personal Assistant to the celebrated Mina Appleton, Christine Butcher understands what is expected of her. Absolute loyalty. Absolute discretion. For twenty years, Christine has been a most devoted servant, a silent witness to everything in Mina’s life. So quiet, you would hardly know she is there.

    Day after day, year after year, Christine has been there, invisible—watching, listening, absorbing all the secrets floating around her. Keeping them safe.

    Christine is trusted. But those years of loyalty and discretion come with a high price. And eventually Christine will pay.

    Yet, it would be a mistake to underestimate such a steadfast woman. Because as everyone is about to discover, there’s a dangerous line between obedience and obsession.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateFeb 12, 2019
    ISBN9780062892331
    Author

    Renée Knight

    Renée Knight worked for the BBC directing arts documentaries before turning to writing. She has had TV and film scripts commissioned by the BBC, Channel Four, and Capital Films. In April 2013, she graduated from the Faber Academy “Writing a Novel” course, whose alumni include S. J. Watson. She lives in London with her husband and two children.

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    Reviews for The Secretary

    3.5/5

    55 ratings6 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Absolutely Brilliant.
      Christine Butcher is not someone I'm likely to forget any time soon.............
    • 4/5
      Neat thriller about a devoted secretary of a supermarket chain, who after being abused by her (female) boss during a land sale scam of defaulting farms, seeks her revenge. Knight writes in an accessible style, applying a first person POV of the secretary, Christine, who starts looking back on her 18 year career as Mina’s no.1 secretary. Gradually a picture emerges of a devoted secretary that sacrifices her family life for her boss, though Christine is not averse to some dirty office politics herself (blaming a younger secretary for mistakes she made, getting her fired, etc). When her boss, Mina, becomes the object of a defamation campaign by a newspaper (claiming they do not honour their self-proclaimed principles of loyalty and fairness towards their family farm producers), she takes the newspaper to court and wins. Next, Mina and her close personal staff (secretary and personal driver) become the object of a humiliating court case for perjury (after one farmer has killed himself due to cancellation of his contract to Mina’s supermarket chain). During the court proceedings, Christine discovers the full extent of the land sale scam that she has unwittingly facilitated. After winning the court case, she and the driver Dave are discharged from the company. This sets the stage for an intricate plot of revenge, masterminded by Christine. While the ending is crafty, I would have liked Knight to delve deeper into the farm scam – would have been nice if the farmers' POV would also somehow have been represented to shed light on an on-going form of exploitation by super market chains of their family farm producers. In its present shape the thriller focuses on the intricate and deadly office politics between Mina and her personal staff, and the (rather far-fetched) scam serves as the backdrop to the ultimately personal vendetta. A missed opportunity to question our present agro-business, corporate driven system of production and consumption.
    • 3/5
      Christine does not have a mind of her own, nor a will or a sense of self other than as servant. Her lack of foresight and trust in Mina was laughable. Would anyone be this dumb? This trusting and deluded? She is so limp that her actions at the end seem really far-fetched. Fun, but silly.
    • 3/5
      The main character's need for validation of her self-worth destroyed her family and fed the ego of her female boss. I can understand her inability to say no her employer at times, but there are limits and I thought this book took it too far to where I didn't have sympathy for the protagonist, which in turn, I didn't appreciate her revenge on her boss. Easy read.....
    • 5/5
      Christine Butcher, in need of a job, is delighted to be offered the job of personal assistant to the charming Mina Appleton, Chief Executive officer of Appleton's, “the grocers with a conscience.” The grocers who pride themselves on treating everyone fairly, farmers and customers alike. Mina describes the line between her personal and public life as being fluid, and her PA must be willing to do both personal tasks and work tasks. Christine loves her job, and shows herself to be intelligent and capable, and is enthralled with Mina, who begins to take over her life. Seeing her job as making sure that Mina's life runs smoothly, nothingis too much for Christine to do for her boss, and this is what Mina expects. Mina carefully polishes her public image: star of her own TV show; hob-knobber with the powerful, including the Prime Minister; owner of a growing grocery chain, constantly in the papers. Then the woman behind all the charm is in danger of being revealed, and that simply can't be allowed to happen.I don't want to relate the plot, but once I got into the book, I read avidly. This is a sinister book, in some ways verging on horror. I do have some problems with the ending, but it didn't ruin the book for me. I'm going to find Renée Knight's first book, based on this one.
    • 3/5
      There was good dramatic tension throughout this with the lead character describing her career of self-effacing servitude to a food-store/lifestyle/cooking mogul in flashbacks when she is recuperating at some sort of idyllic retreat (the location of which remains a secret until close to the end). The courtroom drama was also very well handled. The ending was a disappointment though when it veered into Grand Guignol territory. I had been hoping for something clever rather than diabolical.