Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes (Chamberlain)

The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes
Diane Chamberlain, 2006
Harlequin
528 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780778312956

Summary
An unsolved murder.
A missing child.
A lifetime of deception.

In 1977, pregnant Genevieve Russell disappeared. Twenty years later, her remains are discovered and Timothy Gleason is charged with murder. But there is no sign of the unborn child.

CeeCee Wilkes knows how Genevieve Russell died, because she was there. And she also knows what happened to the missing infant, because two decades ago she made the devastating choice to raise the baby as her own. Now Timothy Gleason is facing the death penalty, and she has another choice to make. Tell the truth, and destroy her family. Or let an innocent man die in order to protect a lifetime of lies... (From the publisher.)

More
Eve Elliot is a successful therapist to troubled students, a loving wife, a mother deeply invested in her family. But her happiness is built on a lie. When she was a lonely, vulnerable young woman, a single decision made in innocence led to a dark night of unimaginable consequences. Now, forced to confront her past, she faces another terrible choice: reveal to her family that she is not who she seems, or allow a man to take the blame for a crime she knows he did not commit. If the choice affected only her life, Eve is certain she would do what is right. But though inaction means condemning an innocent man, it also means protecting her family from the mistakes of her past.

Corinne Elliot has always known she was different: the only redhead in a family of brunettes, the paralyzing shyness that contrasts with her sister's vivaciousness, the many fears—of highways, of bridges, of public spaces—that constrict her daily life. Still, with a new job possibility and a baby on the way, she's found some measure of happiness-until the day she turns on the television and finds her mother's image on screen.

Now, as the past explodes into the present, Corinne must confront the secrets she has always intuited, and find answers from the one person who knows the truth of what happened over two decades ago-CeeCee Wilkes. (With permission from the author's website. Retrieved 6/6/2014.)

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Author Bio
• Birth—1950
• Raised—Plainfield, New Jersey, USA
• Education—B.A., M.A., San Diego State University
• Awards—RITA Award for
• Currently—lives in North Carolina


Diane Chamberlain is the bestselling American author of some 30 novels, primarily surrounding family relationships, love, and forgiveness. Her works have been published in 20 languages. Her best-known books include The Silent Sister (2014), Necessary Lies (2013), and The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes (2006).

In her own words:
I was an insatiable reader as a child, and that fact, combined with a vivid imagination, inspired me to write. I penned a few truly terrible "novellas" at age twelve, then put fiction aside for many years as I pursued my education.

I grew up in Plainfield, New Jersey and spent my summers at the Jersey Shore, two settings that have found their way into my novels.

In high school, my favorite authors were the unlikely combination of Victoria Holt and Sinclair Lewis. I loved Holt's flair for romantic suspense and Lewis's character studies as well as his exploration of social values, and both those authors influenced the writer I am today.

I attended Glassboro State College in New Jersey as a special education major before moving to San Diego, where I received both my bachelor's and master's degrees in social work from San Diego State University. After graduating, I worked in a couple of youth counseling agencies and then focused on medical social work, which I adored. I worked at Sharp Hospital in San Diego and Children's Hospital in Washington, D.C. before opening a private psychotherapy practice in Alexandria, Virginia, specializing in adolescents. I reluctantly closed my practice in 1992 when I realized that I could no longer split my time between two careers and be effective at both of them.

It was while I was working in San Diego that I started writing. I'd had a story in my mind since I was a young adolescent about a group of people living together at the Jersey Shore. While waiting for a doctor's appointment one day, I pulled out a pen and pad began putting that story on paper. Once I started, I couldn't stop. I took a class in fiction writing, but for the most part, I "learned by doing." That story, Private Relations, took me four years to complete. I sold it in 1986, but it wasn't published until 1989 (three very long years!), when it earned me the RITA award for Best Single Title Contemporary Novel. Except for a brief stint writing for daytime TV (One Life to Live) and a few miscellaneous articles for newspapers and magazines, I've focused my efforts on book-length fiction and am currently working on my nineteenth novel.

My stories are often filled with mystery and suspense, and–I hope–they also tug at the emotions. Relationships – between men and women, parents and children, sisters and brothers – are always the primary focus of my books. I can't think of anything more fascinating than the way people struggle with life's trials and tribulations, both together and alone.

In the mid-nineties, I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, a challenging disease to live with. Although my RA is under good control with medication and I can usually type for many hours a day, I sometimes rely on voice recognition technology to get words on paper. I’m very grateful to the inventor of that software! I lived in Northern Virginia until the summer of 2005, when I moved to North Carolina, the state that inspired so many of my stories and where I live with my significant other, photographer John Pagliuca. I have three grown stepdaughters, three sons-in-law, three grandbabies, and two shelties named Keeper and Jet.

For me, the real joy of writing is having the opportunity to touch readers with my words. I hope that my stories move you in some way and give you hours of enjoyable reading. (From the author's website)

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Discussion Questions
1. CeeCee made a terrible mistake as a teenager, yet that mistake gave her a beloved daughter in Corinne. Did you do anything in your younger years that you deeply regret? (You don’t need to reveal what it was!) Did anything good come from it, and if so, how does that impact your feeling of regret?

2. CeeCee was smart and level headed. What elements conspired to allow her to help Tim in his plot to kidnap Genevieve Russell? Was there any point in your life when you might have been similarly seduced?

3. Did you feel sympathy toward CeeCee as a teenager? What other emotions did you feel toward her and why?

4. How did you feel about CeeCee’s mother leaving the letters for her?

5. Discuss CeeCee’s (and young Eve’s) self-esteem issues. What do you think created them and how do they play into her actions?

6. How would you describe Eve as a mother of the infant Cory? Of the adult Cory?

7. How do you feel about Jack as a husband and father? What did you like about him? Dislike?

8. Corinne had many fears and phobias. What do you think was the genesis of those fears?

9. Why do you think Eve made the choice she did when she learned of Tim’s conviction? Would you have made the same choice? Why or why not?

10. How would you have felt in Corinne’s place when she learned of her mother’s deception?

11. How do you feel about family secrets? Would the big secrets in this family–Eve’s actual identity and Corinne’s kidnapping–have been better left alone?
(Questions from the author's website.)

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