The Secrets We Keep

P. A. Farrell

Publisher: Patricia A. Farrell Ph.D., LLC

Summary

A haunting collection of twenty-five interconnected stories that blur the line between memory and fiction, "The Secrets We Keep" explores the hidden dynamics of family and community through the eyes of a narrator revisiting her childhood in a working-class neighborhood. These semi-autobiographical tales reveal how secrets function as both protective forces and sources of harm, shaping the bonds between family members while creating empty spaces where names used to exist.
 
From the faded photograph of a Ziegfeld Follies dancer hiding a dark truth to the mysterious contents of a war veteran's dresser drawer, each story peels back layers of carefully guarded information passed down through generations. Set against the backdrop of post-war America, the collection follows residents of a diverse urban block—from the "Bottle Babies" struggling with addiction to the unlicensed doctor who treats the neighborhood's forgotten children.
 
The narrator guides readers through a landscape of inherited myths, bloodlines, and personal memories that continue to influence future generations. These stories examine how people express their truths through overheard conversations, instances of missing persons, and brief moments of exposure in both public spaces and domestic environments.
 
With prose that captures the cadence of whispered confessions and the weight of unspoken knowledge, "The Secrets We Keep" illuminates the ways secrets maintain their presence through empty spaces and unattended moments. This compelling debut reveals how the stories we think we've forgotten often contain the keys to understanding who we've become.

Available since: 09/29/2025.

Print length: 110 pages.

Other books that might interest you

Mrs Pulaska and Other Stories

Christopher Burns

With this new collection the acclaimed novelist Christopher Burns proves his mastery of the short story form. His intelligent but conflicted characters face their decisive moments across wide ranges of time and place, each action reshaping their futures and redefining their pasts. Interplaying with these choices are locations that underpin and define each story, such as a repository of unstable nitrate film, a desert outcrop where a daughter vanished, a winter barn in which a silent refugee works without explanation, and a Parisian suicide that echoes down far more than a century.
In these stories, landscape itself can be a determinant, as essential to the narrative as the characters that walk into a draining reservoir, a Neolithic cave, or a remote Greek church. For these are driven people – haunted or determined, alert or unaware, lovers or doubters, saviours or perpetrators.
Several of these stories have previously appeared in publications as diverse as Les Temps Modernes, Granta Shorts, Best British Short Stories, The Time Out Book of New York Stories and Prospect.
Christopher Burns' work has been praised by Kazuo Ishiguro, Melvyn Bragg, Margaret Drabble, Hilary Mantel and others. He is the author of six novels, including The Flint Bed (shortlisted for the Whitbread award), The Condition if Ice, A Division of the Light, and an earlier collection of short stories, About The Body. He lives in Cumbria.
This is a wholly distinctive, ambitious and challenging collection that can be read again and again.

Show book

Kiss Me

Samantha Chase

When Marissa Barrett finds herself in a dangerous situation with her family, she needs help—fast. She's normally the queen of problem-solving, but this is one instance where she just can’t seem to find a solution on her own. All she wanted from her boss was help finding an attorney, but before she knows exactly how it’s happened, they’re standing in front of a justice of the peace. Patrick Donovan would do anything to help Marissa. After all, she’s been helping him run his business for years. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t wildly attracted to her, but there's no way he would ever act on it. Plus, with his meddling family looking to see him settle down, the last thing he needs is any kind of romantic relationship. But when Marissa turns to him for help, suddenly he sees a solution that benefits them both. One year of marriage. That's the agreement. But everything’s negotiable, right?

Show book

Stories Before Bedtime - Stories...

Aziel

Stories Before Bedtime: A Heartwarming Collection of Moral Lessons and Magical Moments for Mothers and Children" is a delightful anthology designed to transform bedtime into a cherished ritual. This collection features short, engaging stories that emphasize important moral lessons and foster special bonding moments between mothers and their children. 
Each tale is crafted to be both entertaining and educational, providing young listeners with valuable life lessons about bravery, kindness, honesty, and more. From the courageous adventures of a little turtle to the selfless deeds of a kind-hearted elephant, these stories are sure to captivate young imaginations and instill positive values. 
With an easy-to-read format and enchanting narratives, "Stories Before Bedtime" offers mothers a perfect way to end the day on a positive and uplifting note. Whether you're looking to create lasting memories or impart essential life lessons, this book is an ideal addition to your bedtime routine. Enjoy the magic of storytelling and the joy of quality time spent together with "Stories Before Bedtime."

Show book

The Face

E.F. Benson

More classic horror narrations on Jonathan's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@JonathanDunneHorrorAudiobooks 
Title: The Face 
Author: E. F. Benson 
Narrator: Jonathan Dunne 
Original Publication: 1923 
Public Domain: Yes 
Series: Timeless Terrors 
Number: 114 
Description: 
The Face is a chilling tale of art, obsession, and supernatural retribution. 
The story follows a talented but morally corrupt artist whose life is marked by selfishness and cruelty. When he encounters a subject whose presence unsettles him in ways he cannot explain, his carefully constructed world begins to fracture. What emerges is a haunting exploration of conscience, guilt, and the possibility that some wrongs leave marks deeper than any brushstroke can conceal. 
With mounting psychological tension and an atmosphere thick with unease, E. F. Benson crafts a story where horror arises not from distant cosmic forces, but from the inescapable reckoning of one’s own soul. Subtle, elegant, and deeply disturbing, The Face stands as a masterful example of Benson’s refined supernatural fiction. 
Narrated by Amazon bestselling horror author Jonathan Dunne, this performance captures the quiet dread and moral intensity that define Benson’s distinctive brand of ghostly horror.

Show book

Dickon the Devil - From their...

Sheridan Le Fanu

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu was born on 28th August 1814 in Dublin into a literary family with Huguenot, Irish and English roots.
For a time he and his siblings were tutored but Le Fanu would often immerse himself in the books of his father’s library.
In 1833 Le Fanu began his Law studies at Trinity College, Dublin and graduated in 1839. Although called to the bar he instead began a career in journalism.
He was also writing. His first fiction story ‘The Ghost and the Bonesetter’ was published in 1838. In 1843 came the novella ‘Spalatro: From the Notes of Fra Giacomo’, a hero with a particular necrophiliac passion for an undead blood-drinking beauty, a forerunner to his later female vampire ‘Carmilla’.
In 1844 Le Fanu married Susanna Bennett with whom he had 4 children. The following year his first novel ‘The C'ock and Anchor’ was published. Works now flowed from his pen and with a rapid increase in family finances they moved, in 1851, to Merrion Square, Dublin, where he remained until his death.
In 1858 Susanna died and Le Fanu became reclusive. It was during this period that he produced some of his best work. Working only by candlelight he wrote through the night, burnishing his reputation as a major figure of 19th Century supernaturalism with many classics including; ‘Green Tea’, ‘Mr Justice Harbottle’, and ‘In a Glass Darkly’.
Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu died in Merrion Square in his native Dublin on February 7th, 1873, at the age of 58.

Show book

Bellerophon To Anteia - From...

Mary Butts

Mary Frances Butts was born on 13th December 1890 in Poole, Dorset.
Her early years were spent at Salterns, an 18th-century house overlooking Poole Harbour. Sadly in 1905 her father died, and she was sent for boarding at St Leonard's school for girls in St Andrews.
Her mother remarried and, from 1909, Mary studied at Westfield College in London, and here, first became aware of her bisexual feelings. She was sent down for organising a trip to Epsom races and only completed her degree in 1914 when she graduated from the London School of Economics. By then Mary had become an admirer of the occultist Aleister Crowley and she was given a co-authorship credit on his ‘Magick (Book 4)’.
In 1916, she began the diary which would now detail her future life and be a constant reference point for her observations and her absorbing experiences.
During World War I, she was doing social work for the London County Council in Hackney Wick, and involved in a lesbian relationship. Life changed after meeting the modernist poet, John Rodker and they married in 1918.
In 1921 she spent 3 months at Aleister Crowley's Abbey of Thelema in Sicily; she found the practices dreadful and also acquired a drug habit. Mary now spent time writing in Dorset, including her celebrated book of short stories ‘Speed the Plough’ which saw fully develop her unique Modernist prose style.
Europe now beckoned and several years were spent in Paris befriending many artists and writing further extraordinary stories.
She was continually sought after by literary magazines and also published several short story collections as books. Although a Modernist writer she worked in other genres but is essentially only known for her short stories. Mary was deeply committed to nature conservation and wrote several pamphlets attacking the growing pollution of the countryside.
In 1927, she divorced and the following year her novel ‘Armed with Madness’ was published. A further marriage followed in 1930 and time was spent attempting to settle in London and Newcastle before setting up home on the western tip of Cornwall. By 1934 the marriage had failed.
Mary Butts died on 5th March 1937, at the West Cornwall Hospital, Penzance, after an operation for a perforated gastric ulcer. She was 46.

Show book