Season of Secrets
Things are difficult enough for Molly, with her mother gone and her father distant. But one day she sees a man running for his life and everything changes. Who is the stranger? Is he connected to the old god of her teacher's stories? And who is attacking him - and why?
About Season of Secrets
Spring
The roots of this novel come from the story of the green man, who is the pagan god of summer. A friend told me this story, and I was fascinated by the idea of a person so powerful that he can create summer across a whole world, but who is also incredibly vulnerable, because in order for winter to come, he must be killed.
I wanted to tell his story, but I wanted the story to be based in real life, and to have some relevance to a modern child. I decided to use his cycle of death and rebirth to represent the grief-story of a child whose mother has just died. Like winter, grief isn't something that happens once and then goes away forever. But I wanted to show that hope does come back. And after writing Ways to Live Forever, I wanted this book to end happily.
Summer
Like Ways to Live Forever, Season of Secrets has a lot of things which come from real life. The reason Molly lives with her grandparents over a shop is because when my father was a child, he lived with his great aunt and uncle over a newsagent's. I never knew my father, but the way my mum described his childhood - the kind, old-fashioned couple who let him sleep in their bed because it was the warmest place in the flat - always made it sound like such a cosy, safe place to be.
A lot of the plans Molly and Emily have are for things my friends and I also wanted to do when I was a child. I remember reading Noel Streatfeild's A Vicarage Family and being very impressed that she'd captured that wonderful feeling of possibility - and also our tendency to spend our time planning rather than actually doing.
I'm pleased to say that I managed to get some of my things done.
Autumn
Molly is a harder character to write about than Sam, for several reasons. Sam doesn't like to talk about being sad - he just gives you the space and lets you fill in the details. But Molly is much more emotionally-driven than Sam is and she spends a lot of autumn and winter feeling very sad.
My first drafts had a lot of chapters with Molly moaning about her mum or how much she misses her cat. I took most of these out because they depressed me. But I then had to work with Molly's need to tell you about how she's feeling without letting it take up all of the book.
Season of Secrets works like Ways to Live Forever in reverse. Both are books of two halves, with each half having a very different tone. Both have a significant event which happens somewhere in the middle and changes everything.
Winter
The sad story in this book - the dead mother and the absent father - comes from a book I read written by a woman who looked after foster children. She once cared for a family of six children after their mother died and their father wasn't able to have them. After a year, the father remarried and the children went back home.
I originally wanted to write a book about those six children, but I hit two problems. Firstly, I'm better at stories that are centred around one character and secondly, I didn't really have enough plot for a whole book. In the end I took the interesting bit of their story - how do you cope with a father who obviously loves you, but who abandons you? - and gave it to Molly and Hannah.
hi i Joel . I love the book you wrote which is “Ways To Live Forever” It was a very touching story . Bye Good nite
February 19th, 2009 at 1:38 pmhey Sally damn you really hit the spot didn’t you?I’m sure thousands of people
March 8th, 2009 at 5:34 pmread this book and most of them posted a comment on this website and ways to live forever website and if you ever take the time to read the comments you
will see that you have touched many peoles heart with that book.
Hi, i am wahyu.. i always quest that your book is a true story. But after read that.. Amazing! You’re a good writer ^_^
March 11th, 2009 at 11:26 amI am reading this marvellous book (season of secrets) and it is just inspiring!
March 26th, 2009 at 6:20 pmi loved the book ways to live forever and i’ve resently been given seasons of secrets for my birthday. i love it!!
April 6th, 2009 at 12:29 pmhello..
April 11th, 2009 at 10:02 ami like read your book ways to life 4eve..
so sad..but something really
I really liked your book, I was nearly in tears by the end (: I thought he might somehow be given the all clear…but he didn’t. But, it wouldn’t be that realistic if he did (: Can’t wait for your new book!
April 13th, 2009 at 12:26 pm[...] so nothing new on the bookish front (though I am itching to get my mitts on Sally Nicholls’s Season of Secrets, because Ways To Live Forever was great; Zombie Queen of Newbury High by Amanda Ashby, because [...]
April 18th, 2009 at 4:19 pmI LOVED your book. My dad bought it for me one night and I could not stop reading it! I finished it the next morning. I read it AGAIN! I think it should be a movie cause its SO good! Wish it was a series! Anyway, good luck on your next book!
May 3rd, 2009 at 8:26 amsüper
May 8th, 2009 at 10:34 amI just read season of secrets and i really liked it but i felt like the ending was kinda incomplete. and also how old is molly?
May 19th, 2009 at 6:42 amways to live forever isn´t a very good book.
May 20th, 2009 at 7:47 amit´s a little bit boring and it´s too emotional
ish hase wais tu lif forewer
May 20th, 2009 at 7:49 amaper season off sekrets isd gud
I loved ways to live forever. It was very moving. I have never read a book that actually touched me and made me emotional i can’t wait to read seasons of secrets!
May 30th, 2009 at 11:02 amI loved your book, before I read your books I wasnt interested in reading at all !! but now since I have read your books I love reading !!!
June 4th, 2009 at 8:07 pmhi i really loved your book Seasons of Secrets, in the book it says you went to Japan, i love Japan!
June 8th, 2009 at 11:54 am” I really loved WAYS TO LIVE FOREVER it was a really great book that is why i am going to get your next book”
June 14th, 2009 at 9:34 pmI really liked your book and we have to do a talk on our favourite book and i’m doing it on ways to live forever!
June 20th, 2009 at 11:21 amhey i wantd 2 reed dis one fr a long tym!!!!
August 7th, 2009 at 2:24 pmYou are a wonderful author!!!! Please email me soon!!!!
August 17th, 2009 at 8:35 pmHi!! Sally!! i’m Manasi. I loved “Ways To live Forever”!!!! It was very touching. I was glued to the book & had got many scoldings on day I read it because I was just glued to the book and doing nothing else!!!It IS one of the best book I’ve ever read!!!! I’m very happy to hear that “Season Of Secrets” is released. I am trying to buy it as soon as I can & read it. I am veryy excited about it after reading “Ways To Live Forever”….Keep on writing such great books!!!!! Congratulations!!!!
August 19th, 2009 at 4:52 pmHi i am ten and i read ways to live forever, yesterday begining to end in like three hours. It was really good.
August 31st, 2009 at 3:45 pmI kinda liked and disliked the ending.
Thank you for writing it.
Hi Sally! I am Apurva studying in 8th grade. I ordered your book, “Season of Secrets” through Scholastic in the school and got it yesterday. I am reading the book and am about to reach ch. 15, “Dad”; as I am writing this comment. This book is pretty interesting. I noticed that some of the characters’ names in the book(Hannah, Oliver, Emily) have been taken from Hannah Montana. Why did you make Hannah a negative character? Anyway, this book is sweet and my friends are reading it too!
September 9th, 2009 at 10:25 amP.S
You are an awesome author!
im a big fan of your book i read this book about 20 times i know thats a lot but it was so good thats why i read it about 20 times
September 24th, 2009 at 10:49 amHi Sally!
October 16th, 2009 at 5:23 am“Season Of Secrets” is damn good! I loved “Ways To Live Forever”!!!
Hope that your book 3 will also be that good!!! I’ve read “Ways To Live Forever” manyyyy times!!! I am a big fan of your’s.
Thanks for your help! I’ve got it!!
Manasi
Hi im 10 and I read Ways To Live Forever and thought it was so touching and im gonna read The Season of Secrets!CANT WAIT
October 25th, 2009 at 3:22 amHi im 10 and I read Ways to Live Forever and loved it. I’m gonna read the secret seasons soon cant wait!!!!!
October 25th, 2009 at 3:25 amI LOVE THIS BOOK!!!
November 14th, 2009 at 10:23 ami read more than 150 pages in 2 nights that its that good!
Sally,could you please write some more books like this one because you are such a great author!
thanks.
From Eve
hi, i love season of secrets!!! i really wish there was a second book for it as it was amazing, i like a lot of books but yours is far the best. its the first time i cried at the end of a book:) i really loved it when Molly met the green man in the woods when he was a boy and when they dance at the end. i read the book straight though and couldn’t put it down and its still in my head now:D its the best book in the world to me and i really REALLY love it. i hope you right another season of secrets with Molly and the green man, i dont really know how to explain it but it was the best story and it would really be good if you wrote another and im sure that loads of other people want another season of secrets as well:D anyway cya from scarth
December 1st, 2009 at 6:55 pmhello im 14 and im wondering if season of secret is a bit too young for me, i like meg cabot and kate cann and lots of other authors but is this book a bit too young for me
(i don’t know if this is very clear lol x)
December 16th, 2009 at 6:14 pmthanku
hey!!!! I read ur book”Ways to live forever” !!! Its jus’ awesome……..
January 21st, 2010 at 2:27 pmI’m only 11 but I still love your book season of secrets so I had to get my mum to by ways to live forever!
January 23rd, 2010 at 5:56 pmways to live forever was the first book I read that made me think like really think and put myself in the persons shoes. My mum is not a doctor but she works for the department of health so she explained it to me. Im so glad you wrote that book, my mum partly helped but you were the person who helped me to understand long term illnesses.
February 10th, 2010 at 4:50 pmRightnow I am reading your book called ” Ways to live forever” I just got it today and I am already on page 15 and onchapter three. This book is fantastic and I love it so far, I really hope you write more books like this. I’m kind of afraid that I will cry once I getto the ending because Ithink he dies. It reminds me about the movie and book My Sister’s Keeper It is very sad, but it’s a great book and movieso I hope you read it. I LOVE your book ” Ways to Live Forever” I requested it to my6 schoollibrary, sothey have it now and I think it’s very popular. February 18, 2010
February 18th, 2010 at 10:48 pmI love this book, it helps me to escape from real life, and it’s just the right length to read the whole book when I can;t sleep, but don’t tell Mum…
March 18th, 2010 at 6:12 pmBEST BOOK I EVER READ!!! 10 OUT OF 10!!!
March 19th, 2010 at 5:47 pmi love this book ’seasons of secrets’ i recomend it.
it’s a nice book
March 25th, 2010 at 12:37 pmI’m fron Israel, and I need to do about that book a book report.
I understood almost all of the words, and I just LOVED that book!
ways to live forever was great and this one sounds it sally is such a great writer
April 29th, 2010 at 7:11 pmI have just read your book “Ways to live forever” and i loved it!
May 3rd, 2010 at 5:11 pmIt is SOOOOOOO god!!It fit so good to my school project!
Thank you!
And as we say in Norwegian
Takk!
I love your books!
Jeg elsker Bøkene dine!
goodbye!
hadet:D
hi my name is shelby and i am reading ways too live forever it is a great book. i have only 30 pages left i realy like the characters. but i dont understand why sam would want to smoke if he doesnt want to die? please write back!
May 9th, 2010 at 6:06 pmshelby again! ways to live forever is a good book. i am from the usa but can speak spanish, hola cuma astas hi how are you. in spanish
May 9th, 2010 at 6:11 pmHello, I loved the book. But your first one was better. For once in my life I liked the book (ways to live forever) we read on school. Oh, and I’m dutch XD
June 15th, 2010 at 3:46 pmJust incredible, im 13 and i’ve read your book ways to live forever many times already, it makes me cry everytime, you put so much emotion into it. I love it and i’m hoping to read more of your amazing work. I have just bought your other book the season of secrets one and it looks good. I haven’t even read any of it yet
July 27th, 2010 at 7:40 pmAnyway i hope you write some more books soon because right now i’m having to read captain underpants to pass the time! haha
Thanks a whole load, your book helped me come off facebook alot. I felt like i just had to finish reading ways to live forever before i checked my notifications! Which is crazy because i was addicted at the time!
Live Long and Prosper xD
PEACE OUT
xxx
Hi i really enjoyed reading season of sercerts. Will you ever read a second book ?
September 8th, 2010 at 4:29 pmi loved your book ways to live.and i hope you continue a second part after sam reaches heaven.by akshay,mumbai,india.
September 10th, 2010 at 7:35 am
September 10th, 2010 at 7:38 amHey Sally,
September 30th, 2010 at 1:12 amI just finished reading your book ‘Ways to live forever’, it is truely an amazing book. I never thought I would enjoy a book so much just for a book report.(:
“Ways to live forever” is an amazing book!
October 27th, 2010 at 9:10 pmHey Sally ! I loved the book so much!!!
October 29th, 2010 at 11:03 amCan’t wait to read more of your books!!
Hey !
November 5th, 2010 at 3:03 amHey ! I just loved reading this book and I wish to read more books written by you. It’s a sad story but Secrets of Seasons really inspired me to write something good. Please keep writing and we shall promise to read your good work.
November 5th, 2010 at 3:05 amThanks,
Upasha
xoxox
HI!
Season of Secrets is a WONDERFUL book, there is so much “Magic in the words”!
It´s my favourite book EVER and I love Molly. And Emily, too.
Yours, Lily xxx,11 years old
November 8th, 2010 at 6:39 pmmooi boek!
December 12th, 2010 at 6:04 pmheyya sally i love your books they are sooo good you should write another one they are so moving! i reacomended one to my english teacher she is quite picky about books and she loved it!!! i am only 13 but i really love your books!! please write back to me!!
January 7th, 2011 at 9:11 pmhi sally i just got your book and it sounds great cant wait to read it taking it everywhere!!!!
April 14th, 2011 at 7:48 pmi am 11 and love reading!!!!
write back soon!!!!
Hi Sally & everyone reading
I have never read this book but i am looking forward to reading it. This book sounds really amazing.Cant wait till i get the book next Saturday. From the extract i think that i would not be able to put the book down.I can NOT wait till Saturday when I get “Seasons of Secrets” !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
April 18th, 2011 at 5:51 pmi thought your book was ok but i was wondering did the man make molly’s mom come back to life?
May 5th, 2011 at 11:57 pmbok is fanstasic
May 30th, 2011 at 11:00 pmI m currently readin’”The Season of Secrets” and believe me…its an amazing suspense and an outstanding novel……..U r the BEST, Sally….
July 4th, 2011 at 9:33 am