It’s No Longer a Secret

October 26, 2011

All the Secret Things, my novel, quietly slipped into the world-wide web. The paperback edition is available for the first time at Amazon.com.

When you carry a novel within your heart for thirty years, writing it off and on, and reaching 73 as I have, All the Secret Things, finally had to be finished. I feel empty now that my characters are alive on paper and no longer pleading for me to tell their story, but my ‘joy has risen’ because I completed Emily’s story in my lifetime.

In my novel, I wanted to convey through my main character Emily her determination as a child to make a positive difference.

She was caught between two sets of parents and did not feel safe with either family. When she lived with her father, she was terrorized by her stepbrother. When she lived with her alcoholic mother, her bizarre behavior embarrassed Emily.

Yet, it only takes one person to believe in you . . .

She had that “aha” moment when she was ten and that one person believed in her.

In the story Emily’s mother had humiliated her in front of the school children and Miss Gilbert the principal. After Emily’s mother left, the principal reassured the child, that she was loved and respected by her teachers and friends and would do well in life because of her gifts.

Emily thought: I smiled; I was so relieved. I knew that moment Miss Gilbert’s kind words had changed my life. She believed in me; she saw something special in me. One day I knew I’d be a teacher just like all the other teachers I had loved. I’d be kind to children, listen to them, and treat them with respect.

Now that the secret is out, I hope you will read Emily’s story.