Naturally, I’m thinking about this because my new book. The Secret Between Us is on sale, contests are running, and I’m booking phone visits with reading groups to discuss it. Secrets – why we keep them, when we tell them, whether they help or hurt – are bound to be part of the discussion.

Want to help me prepare? Here are some questions.

Yes or no. Do you have a secret you’ve never told another living soul?

Yes or no. Did you ever keep a secret from a parent?

Yes or no. Have you kept a secret from a spouse?

Yes or no. Are there any situations when keeping a secret is the best thing to do?

I thought about these issues often while I was writing The Secret Between Us. Using the word ‘secret’ is something of a set-up. From the get-go, the reader knows that a secret if the focal point of the book.

If you’ve read my earlier blogs on this book, you’ll remember that its original title was Driving at Night. I loved the ambiguity of it, the juxtaposition of the physical act of driving at night, as occurs in the opening scene of the book, with the figurative act of feeling one’s way through the murky times in life. My publisher came up with The Secret Between Us, and from a marketing standpoint, it is better. There’s something about a secret that makes people lean in, cup an ear, and listen close.

What is it about secrets that makes them so appealing? Is it their hidden nature? Their potential for dirt or intimacy or even betrayal?

When you think about it, secrets are a staple of fiction. I’ve dealt with them in many of my books. Jenny, in Flirting With Pete, kept a major secret. The secret held by Gretchen, the title character in The Woman Next Door, kept the tension up through three neighborhood marriages and much of the book. And no less than four characters grapple with secrets in Family Tree.

One of my favorites when it comes to secrets is For My Daughters. This is the book I wrote after reading The Bridges of Madison County and seriously doubting that a woman could meet the love of her life during a summer fling and afterward return to her life with no one ever the wiser. My Virginia wasn't so lucky. Now, at the age of seventy and in failing health, she has a secret to tell her daughters. The reader learns that at the outset, and doesn’t learn the secret until the end of the book. It keeps her reading.

So. How about you? Right now, right here. Want to share your thoughts about secrets?