“Everything I love in a novel: a coastal setting so rich you can practically taste the salt in the air and feel the sand underfoot, an old inn, and a deeply felt and explored love story with a smart, relatable heroine and a handsome hero with a mysterious past. Atmospheric, suspenseful, and very romantic.”
—Erika Marks, author of It Comes in Waves
“Beautiful and haunting. The mystery sucked me in from the first page and I was swept up in Lane and Michael’s story. . . . I could not read it fast enough!”
—Anita Hughes, author of Lake Como
“Set on a desolate, storm-tossed North Carolina barrier island lush with family secrets, madness, and ghost stories, this lyrical novel will haunt you from the first page to the last.”
—Barbara Claypole White, award-winning author of The In-Between Hour
Praise for The Secrets She Carried
“Barbara Davis wowed me with her flawless blending of past and present in The Secrets She Carried. Her compassion for her characters made me care and her haunting tale kept the pages flying. A poignant, mysterious, and heartfelt story.”
—Diane Chamberlain, author of Necessary Lies and The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes
Written by today’s freshest new talents and selected by New American Library, NAL Accent novels touch on subjects close to a woman’s heart, from friendship to family to finding our place in the world. The Conversation Guides included in each book are intended to enrich the individual reading experience, as well as encourage us to explore these topics together—because books, and life, are meant for sharing.
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“I was swept into Adele’s heartbreaking life and her devotion to those she loved.”
—Susan Crandall, author of Whistling Past the Graveyard
“I read Barbara Davis’s debut novel, The Secrets She Carried, deep into the night—one minute rushing to discover how the mysteries resolved, the next slowing. . . . Adele Laveau’s haunting voice and Leslie Nichols’s journey toward understanding lingered long after I read the final page of this engrossing tale.”
—Julie Kibler, author of Calling Me Home
“The Secrets She Carried is a beautifully crafted page-turner with many twists but a simple theme: No matter how far you run, you can’t escape your past. Part contemporary women’s fiction, part historical novel, the plot moves seamlessly back and forth in time to unlock family secrets that bind four generations of women. Add a mysterious death, love that defies the grave, and the legacy of redemption, and this novel has it all.”
—Barbara Claypole White, author of The Unfinished Garden
“This beautifully written novel tells a tale of epic romance, one that lasts through the decades and centuries. All centered on a plantation home in small-town North Carolina, love stories unfold as the novel progresses through both past and present, and hidden secrets, once thought long buried, slowly reveal themselves. It’s a beautiful story, and Davis does an amazing job telling it.”
—Romantic Times (41/2 stars)
“Davis’s writing is heartfelt and effective.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Davis has a gift for developing flawed characters and their emotionally wrenching dilemmas. The small-town setting, full of gossip and prejudice in the Depression years, feels realistic . . . a very satisfying tale.”
—Historical Novel Society