What if everything you thought you knew about your life was a lie but you couldn’t remember the truth?
And what if your body did remember and used physical symptoms to get your attention? If you confronted the truth, would your body heal? Would healing also demand that you forgive those who hurt you, lied to you, and betrayed you? Emergency doctor Sean Thomas must answer these questions if he wants his life back.
One cold November Seattle morning, Sean Thomas is nearly run over by a speeding SUV. The car plunges over an embankment and crashes onto the highway 40 feet below. Sean rushes to the scene and saves six-year-old Michael Brennan, who remains comatose in the same hospital Sean was in when he survived events that killed his family more than 20 years before.
After the boy’s rescue Sean begins to have physical symptoms that force him onto medical leave. But more troubling is that during his “episodes” he travels to another realm in which he meets Michael’s dead sister, and eventually others. There he learns that his path and Michael’s are inextricably linked with similarities between his childhood and Michael’s that raise painful questions.
Feeling like he’s going crazy, Sean is determined to find out the truth. “The past is dead, Sean, leave it be,” his bitter, broken aunt who raised him always said. But Sean knows the only way to get his life back is to uncover the secrets that have haunted him all his life. Secrets that now prevent him from working as a doctor. Secrets that have kept him from having the only things he’s ever truly wanted: love and family.
Sean’s journey takes him down paths that challenge all he knows about healing, about relationships, and about life. Can Sean handle the whole truth? Can he forgive the unforgivable? And if he does, will he find the healing he needs and the love he so desperately wants?
[This is] a complex story of love that spans multiple generations beautifully and seamlessly. The novel has a spiritual feel to it as it explores one family’s journey to become whole…I thoroughly enjoyed this novel.
—Michael Gurian, New York Times Bestselling Author, Marriage & Family Couselor
Read a sample chapter
Print & ebooks available on Amazon
or by contacting Barbara for a signed copy
ebook on Kindle and from your favorite eBook retailers like Apple, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and more. Also available at libraries through Overdrive.
Connie Whitman interviews Barbara on Enlightenment of Change webtalk.net radio show.
Book Club Visits
Barbara had the pleasure of meeting with the Reading Between the Wines book club in Spokane Washington in February. We had a great time with nearly a dozen fabulous women present to talk about The Secrets Underneath (although we didn’t take the photo until half of the gals left).
To schedule a virtual or in-person visit with your book club, email Barbara
