The Secret Thief by Judith Jaeger
Trade Paperback	5 ½ x 8 ½	Fiction
Release date: June 2006	204 pages	ISBN: 978-1-933016-28-3
	List Price: $14.95

All her life, Connie Grey has been the perfect daughter. She is obedient and devoted to her controlling mother, a straight-A student and a champion distance runner. She also has a chronic stomach ulcer, a good sense of humor and kleptomania. Just out of college in the mid-1990s, Connie longs for a future to call her own, but must first face some startling facts about her life and let the truth set her free.

Connie is spending the summer with her grandmother in Green Hill, New Hampshire, helping to pack up the family homestead for a move. She is certain about two things: Her grandmother is her enemy, and her mother is her ally. But a family secret, revealed through the objects Connie finds in her grandmother's attic, proves that things aren't always what they seem. As Connie also uncovers horrible secrets about her relationship with her mother, she comes to a chilling understanding of what's at stake if she can't face the truth.

Reviews and Accolades

As Connie collects her secrets, readers grow to care about this agile Secret Thief as she tries to solve the puzzle of her own place in her family history.
-ForeWord Magazine

I was thoroughly impressed by the depth and honesty in this story.the female version of the story, A Child Called It by Dave Peltzer.well worth the read. I recommend it to readers who want to enter the mind of a victim. There is no sugarcoating in this story. Just the gut wrenching truth in the young woman's messed up mind.
-Michelle Sutton, edgyinspirationalauthor.blogspot.com/

"Judith Jaeger (is) a powerful and exciting new voice in fiction. utterly compelling and psychologically astute. I found myself diving into the book as I would a dish of my favorite ice cream."
- Marc D. Feldman, M.D., Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, University of Alabama, Author of Playing Sick?

"The Secret Thief is a work that successfully walks the tightrope between humor and pathos. The voices of all of her characters are rich and distinctive. Ms. Jaeger has written a multi-layered, emotionally complex, riveting coming-of-age saga."
-Neil Landau, screenwriter and playwright; Visiting Assistant Professor, MFA Screenwriting Program, UCLA School of Film and Television

".moving and entertaining, and the tone of Jaeger's writing hits the right note all through...The humor was wonderful, alternately light-hearted and caustic at the right moment.Connie's voice is so complete that she succeeds in inviting the reader along with her into a grim situation. We go willingly, because the writing is multi-faceted-smart, well-modulated, agile, creating indelible scenes without a lot of fanfare or overworked imagery."
-Mariana Romo-Carmona, author of Living at Night and Speaking like an Immigrant

"With skillful precision, Judith Jaeger weaves us into the mind and body of a young woman on the verge of exploding with pent-up rage and denial. This sustained, unsparing journey to the core of the narrator's self-loathing and out the other side makes an utterly compelling read. The Secret Thief announces the arrival of an important new novelist."
- Eric Darton, author of Divided We Stand: A Biography of New York's World Trade Center

"Kudos to Judith Jaeger on a first novel that's part mystery, part coming-of-age and all in all a page turner."
- Suzanne Strempek Shea, author of Becoming Finola

About the Author

JUDITH JAEGER is a writer and editor in Central Massachusetts, where she also teaches undergraduate fiction and creative writing. She earned her Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont. She is currently working on her second novel.

You may view Judith's website here.