ABOUT HER SECRET LIFE:
I hold my breath as we push the door open. I’m not ready. But I know it’s time. And I know there will be a before and after this moment, the moment we finally discover the secret our mother had kept hidden for all our lives…
I haven’t spoken to my mother or sisters in years, but everything changes when I lose my husband. And I know it’s finally time to tell them why I’ve pushed them away. But as I approach my childhood home, my heart drops at the sight of police tape across the porch, and it shatters when I’m told my mother’s body has been recovered from the lake behind the house. I’m too late.
Pushing all our differences aside, my sisters and I desperately search her house for answers. But something isn’t right. Her clothes are missing, and everything is covered in a thick layer of dust. Our mother hasn’t lived here for months. What has she been keeping from us?
Just as we’re about to give up hope, we learn we’ve inherited a cottage we never knew existed. As we slowly push open the faded green front door, we are hit with the familiar scent of her perfume. This is where our mother had been all this time. But nothing can prepare us for when we finally unearth the reason why…
Now, I’m forced to decide if my mother’s secret will give me the strength to reveal my own to my sisters and heal our rift, or if it has the power to drive us apart forever.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Anna E. Collins is a Seattle area author who writes stories about the lives and loves of women—their hopes, dreams, journeys, and relationships—with the goal of making readers both laugh and cry.
She grew up in Sweden as a voracious reader with a vivid imagination but didn’t start writing fiction until after she had kids.
By that point, she had worked as a high school teacher for several years, married an American, undertaken two international moves, and needed a new outlet.
Her first (gargantuan and unpublishable) venture into fiction sparked a passion for creating people and worlds that illustrate and illuminate aspects of the human experience that connect us.
A couple more books and a master’s degree in educational psychology later, Anna decided to make writing more than a hobby, and she has never looked back.
Whether writing women’s fiction or romantic comedies, Anna aspires to create characters that jump off the page and relationships that are as imperfect as the ones we find in everyday life.
