Secret's out on this intriguing 'tween' tale

It started with a strange noise in the garden shed, grew into a story that had to be told and ended with Too Many Secrets, a bewitching debut novel by Napier author Adele Broadbent.
Adele, 42, had been at her Poraiti lifestyle farm with her husband and two sons for just three months when ''Becs'' (the main character in her book) popped into her head.
''One day I was in the garden listening to all the amazing birdsong and I heard a noise coming from the shed. That was it ... within a few minutes Becs went from an idea to a real person. She's a drama queen, doesn't know when to hold her tongue and thinks her entire family are 'so unfair'.
''It was an entire new way of life for us at Poraiti. So quiet and dark at night. It took us all a while to get used to the change and it made me wonder what would it be like for a 'tween' (someone aged between 9 and 12) to suddenly be taken away from all her friends and stuck out in the wop-wops with no cellphone or internet.''
Adele asked a 14-year-old female member of her extended family how she would feel: ''Oh My God ... no way'', was more or less the response she got.
Adele says she started writing after her son asked her to tell him a bedtime story.
''I made up a story about a mouse. The next night he asked for the same story. When on the third night the request was for the mouse again, I thought maybe I should write it down.''
She has written junior educational books for the US and Australia ''all based on experiences with my boys''.
She still asks her now 14-year-old son what he thinks of some of her ideas. ''I know he'll tell me the truth, 'that's naff mum, or that would never happen'.''
Too Many Secrets is the third book Adele has written. The first was rejected and is sitting on a shelf at home. The second, which was also rejected the first time, is to be published in January and is an historical story about an apprentice jockey. Too Many Secrets was also rejected the first time around.
''One thing I have learnt from all this is to never give up.''
And lucky for all those 9- to 12-year-olds out there, Adele didn't give up.
Dedicated to her family ''who put up with me while my head was full of another family'', Too Many Secrets is a credit to Adele's talent.
She says she's not finished with Becs yet and the next instalment will be a bit more ''spooky''. Bring it on.