Book Club

New York Times Bestseller and Hello Sunshine Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick

At the height of the Cold War, Irina, a young Russian-American secretary, is pulled from the CIA typing pool and given the assignment of a lifetime. Her mission: to help smuggle Doctor Zhivago into the USSR, where it is banned, and enable Boris Pasternak’s epic novel to make its way into print around the world. Mentoring Irina is Sally Forrester: a seasoned spy who has honed her gift for deceit, using charm and magnetism to pry secrets out of powerful men. The Secrets We Kept combines a literary love story—the decades-long affair between Pasternak and his mistress-muse, Olga Ivinskaya, who inspired Zhivago’s heroine, Lara—with a narrative about two women empowered to lead lives of extraordinary intrigue and risk.