Book Review: Deeply Hidden Secrets by M.C. Questgend

Title: Deeply Hidden Secrets

Author: M.C. Questgend

Publisher: M.C. Questgend

Publication Date: August 4, 202

Genres: Erotica, Thriller

Shelves: Female-authored, transgender

Secrets. They can protect us, but they can also expose us. At their best, they can insulate us from those who would betray us but, at their worst, they can leave us vulnerable to such betrayal. When it comes down to it, Deeply Hidden Secrets can be the worst of them all, and M.C. Questgend explores both sides of the divide.

Although her fiction has always done a fabulous job of weaving emotion and imagination together, of mixing genre fiction and romance/erotica, Questgend has never gone quite so dark as she has here. This is a dark, violent, psychological thriller with some extraordinarily chilling scenes of captivity and torture. It’s a story that gets deep under your skin and makes your heart race, even as it messes with your mind.

Martin is a man with secrets, someone who crossdresses to feel comfortable, to feel safe, to feel loved. Kristy is a woman with secrets of her own, a mysterious figure who, from the very start, seems too good to be true. She gives him a job and a place to stay, and supports him in exploring his feminine side, but before long that support becomes coercion . . . before giving way to entrapment and worse. There’s no clear connection between Kristy and the people who begin disappearing around Martin, but it’s hard not to be suspicious, especially once Quinn arrives on the scene and things become dangerous.

The confession/confrontation that follows is where the story turns sharpest, taking a turn for the worse that really crosses lines of gender and consent. I did not expect it to go where it did, and I loved that it surprised me in so many ways, but I loved the fact that it didn’t end there even more. There’s still a final act to go, a final third of the book that changes the story again, and follows Martina into a new life, proving that the most Deeply Hidden Secrets, those most cruelly betrayed, can become the strongest of truths.

Rating: ♀ ♀ ♀ ♀ 1/2

My sincere thanks to the author for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review.