Australian author Kate Morton has steadily made a name for herself with her sweeping English-set historical sagas revolving around mysterious, long-kept family secrets. "The Secret Keeper," her latest book, which continues that same obsession with uncovering old secrets and the passage of time, debuted this week at No. 8 on the New York Times bestseller list.

Only slightly straying away from the English Gothic territory she cultivated in her first three novels, Morton's new novel once again takes place in the 1959 England. As teenager Laurel hides away in a tree house during a family celebration, she alone witnesses her mother kill a strange man she has never seen before.

Due to Laurel's lies, no one believes her story. Cut to present day, Laurel, now a successful actress, is called back home to be at her 90-year-old dying mother's bedside. As she sees her mother and family for the first time in years, the memories come rushing back and she is compelled to solve the mystery of that long past day from her youth before her mother passes away.

"Morton has obvious star power. She's young, modest and beautiful - with 'the best legs in the business,' according to her husband - and her books, behind their soothing pastoral covers, offer plenty of plot twists and soapy atmospherics," said The New York Times.

"The Secret Keeper" is Morton's first hardcover bestseller, although her previous book, "The Forgotten Garden" had an eight-month run on the trade paperback bestseller list, and was a book club favorite. Morton has become a bona fide hit in her homeland, and a bankable star even beyond Australia's shores.

In Britain her books have hit No.1 on The Times bestseller list, beaten in annual sales only by J. K. Rowling. Her books have now sold more than 17 million copies internationally, and Clint Eastwood's film company, Malpaso Productions, recently bought the film rights to "The Forgotten Garden," her second novel.

'But it does all feel a bit overwhelming, when I think about it,'' Morton said in an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald. ''So I try not to. I simply love writing good stories; that's my passion. I write what I'd like to read and just hope that, along the way, others might like to read them, too.''

'We're all Anglophiles and she writes in such a beautiful English style,'' says Lisa Keim, subsidiary rights director of Morton's US publisher, Simon & Schuster. ''Her stories have such great mysteries at their heart; no one writes about family secrets like she does. In Canada, she's considered a goddess.''

Morton seems to be taking both success and critics in stride.''Some say I'm an overnight success,'' she laughs. ''Well, that was a very long night that lasted about 10 years. But while I do, of course, now feel the pressure of having had books that have been very successful, I just know I have to concentrate on writing for myself. I can't worry about genres or markets or what might be commercial or not. That never works.''

''She's created a genre completely of her own,'' Selwa Anthony says,the agent who discovered her. ''But that has to be good for Australian authors. It makes everyone take us a lot more seriously.''

"The Secret Keeper" is available now.