‘What would have become of me if my mother would have died before my ninth birthday instead of running away?’

Right in the middle of World War II, when Rita Verschuur was eight years old, her mother left her and her father for a ‘gentleman of the tennis club’. This affair quickly faded out but her mother continued to lead an independent life in which men played and increasingly large part. What inspired this lively and later irritably and helpless woman? Were her stories of royal Indonesian ancestry true? Did Rita really have the a princesses bloodline? And why did her mother betray her for a second time hurting her daughter deeply again?

My Mother’s Secret is the story of a turbulent relationship with a mother and also a fascinating family portrait.

‘This family drama is profoundly expressed in the book.’ – Lies Schut in De Telegraaf

‘I could not stop reading. In everything you feel the need of the author to write this book and to find out why her life took this bizarre twist. Not to offend, not to argue but because there simply is no other option. This book was never written to become a bestseller, but it has everything to become one.’ 
– Noordhollands Dagblad

‘In fact I had three mothers’, Rita Verschuur jokingly admits. With irony: ‘Mother never cared much for me and my stepmother cared for me as long as I stayed under her wings. But Astrid loved me just the way I am.’ – Rita Verschuur interviewed by VPRO about her special relationship with Astrid Lindgren