Family Secrets

With the holidays coming up, a lot of us are planning on heading to family gatherings...do you have any family secrets?  These ten novels certainly do!  A lot out there on this theme, so these are ten from 2018.

Between Earth and Sky by Amanda Skenandore - On a quiet Philadelphia morning in 1906, a newspaper headline catapults Alma Mitchell back to her past. A federal agent is dead, and the murder suspect is Alma's childhood friend, Harry Muskrat. Harry--or Asku, as Alma knew him--was the most promising student at the 'savage-taming' boarding school run by her father, where Alma was the only white pupil. Created in the wake of the Indian Wars, the Stover School was intended to assimilate the children of neighboring reservations. Instead, it robbed them of everything they'd known--language, customs, even their names--and left a heartbreaking legacy in its wake ... she barely recognizes the man Asku has become, cold and embittered at being an outcast in the white world and a ghost in his own. Her lawyer husband, Stewart, reluctantly agrees to help defend Asku for Alma's sake. To do so, Alma must revisit the painful secrets she has kept hidden from everyone--especially Stewart.

The Cottage on Rose Lane by Hope Ramsay - Jenna Fossey's life is about to change. An unexpected inheritance and the chance to meet relatives she never knew existed has her heading to the charming little town of Magnolia Harbor. But as soon as she arrives, long-buried family secrets lead to even more questions, and the only person who can help her find the answers is her sexy-as-sin sailing instructor. Nothing makes Jude St. Pierre feel more alive than racing on the open sea - at least, not until Jenna comes strolling down his dock asking for sailing lessons. But it feels wrong to be attracted to her - especially when he learns why she came to town. Jude knows she deserves the truth but can he help her discover it without losing her and the family he's come to think of as his own? Book 1 of 3 in the Moonlight Bay series 

Cut and Run by Mary Burton - Medical examiner Faith McIntyre is called in on the case of an unconscious woman clinging to life after a hit and run. The woman is FBI agent Macy Crow is Faith's mirror image-- the twin sister she never knew she had. Faith knew that she was adopted, but now she and Texas Ranger Mitchell Hayden are following a trail of clues Macy left behind. They make a shocking discovery on an isolated country ranch: a burial ground for three women who disappeared thirty years before. Will Faith be able to save her sister and herself from the past?

Dreams of Falling by Karen White - It's been nine years since Larkin fled Georgetown, South Carolina, vowing never to go back. But when she finds out that her mother has disappeared, she knows she has no choice but to return to the place that she both loves and dreads--and to the family and friends who never stopped wishing for her to come home. Ivy, Larkin's mother, is discovered in the burned out wreckage of her family's ancestral rice plantation, badly injured and unconscious. No one knows why Ivy was there, but as Larkin digs for answers, she uncovers secrets kept for nearly 50 years. Secrets that lead back to the past, to the friendship between three girls on the brink of womanhood who swore that they would be friends forever, but who found that vow tested in heartbreaking ways.

How to Keep a Secret by Sarah Morgan - When three generations of women are brought together by crisis, they learn over the course of one hot summer the power of family to support, nourish and surprise
Lauren has the perfect life...if she ignores the fact it's a fragile house of cards, and that her daughter Mack has just had a teenage personality transplant.
Jenna is desperate to start a family with her husband, but it's... Just. Not. Happening. Her heart is breaking, but she's determined to keep her trademark smile on her face.
Nancy knows she hasn't been the best mother, but how can she ever tell Lauren and Jenna the reason why?
Then life changes in an instant, and Lauren, Mack, Jenna and Nancy are thrown together for a summer on Martha's Vineyard. Somehow, these very different women must relearn how to be a family. And while unraveling their secrets might be their biggest challenge, the rewards could be infinite.

Keep Her Safe by K. A. Tucker - Noah Marshall has had a privileged life thanks to his mother, the highly decorated chief of the Austin Police Department. But all that changes the night she reveals a skeleton that's been rattling in her closet for years: she doesn't deserve her commendations or her medals--in fact, she deserves to be locked behind bars. When she finally succumbs to the guilt of destroying an innocent family's life, she leaves Noah alone to carry the burden of this shocking secret. Gracie Richards wasn't born into trailer park life, but after fourteen years of learning how to survive in The Hollow, it's all she knows anymore. At least here people don't care that she has a white mother and a black father. And they certainly don't care that her dad was a corrupt Austin cop. Here, she and her mother are just another family struggling to survive ... until a man who clearly doesn't belong shows up on her doorstep one night. Together, Noah and Gracie set out to uncover the truth about the Austin Police Department's dark and messy past--but the scandal they uncover is bigger than they bargained for, and goes far higher up than they ever imagined.

The Lost Vintage by Ann Mah - To become one of only a few hundred certified wine experts in the world, Kate must pass the notoriously difficult Master of Wine examination. She's failed twice before; her third attempt will be her last chance. Suddenly finding herself without a job and with the test a few months away, she travels to Burgundy to spend the fall at the vineyard estate that has belonged to her family for generations. There she can bolster her shaky knowledge of Burgundian vintages and reconnect with her cousin Nico and his wife, Heather, who now oversee day-to-day management of the grapes. The one person Kate hopes to avoid is Jean-Luc, a talented young winemaker and her first love.
At the vineyard house, Kate is eager to help her cousin clean out the enormous basement that is filled with generations of discarded and forgotten belongings. Deep inside the cellar, behind a large armoire, she discovers a hidden room containing a cot, some Resistance pamphlets, and an enormous cache of valuable wine. Piqued by the secret space, Kate begins to dig into her family's history--a search that takes her back to the dark days of World War II and introduces her to a relative she never knew existed, a great-half aunt who was a teenager during the Nazi occupation.
As she learns more about her family, the line between resistance and collaboration blurs, driving Kate to find the answers to two crucial questions: Who, exactly, did her family aid during the difficult years of the war? And what happened to six valuable bottles of wine that seem to be missing from the cellar's collection?

Praise Song for the Butterflies by Bernice L. McFadden - Abeo Kata lives a comfortable, happy life in West Africa as the privileged nine-year-old daughter of a government employee and stay-at-home mother. But when the Katas' idyllic lifestyle takes a turn for the worse, Abeo's father, following his mother's advice, places the girl in a religious shrine, hoping that the sacrifice of his daughter will serve as atonement for the crimes of his ancestors. Unspeakable acts befall Abeo for the fifteen years she is held in the shrine. When she is finally rescued, broken and battered, she must struggle to overcome her past, endure the revelation of family secrets, and learn to trust and love again.

The Storyteller's Secret by Sejal Badani - Nothing prepares Jaya, A New York journalist, for the heartbreak of her third miscarriage and the slow unraveling of her marriage in its wake. Desperate to assuage her deep anguish, she decides to go to India to uncover answers to her family's past. Intoxicated by the sights, smells, and sounds she experiences, Jaya becomes an eager student of the culture. But it is Ravi -- her grandmother's former servant and trusted confidant -- who reveals the resilience, struggles, secret love, and tragic fall of Jaya's pioneering grandmother during the British occupation. Through her courageous grandmother's arrestingly romantic and heart-wrenching story, Jaya discovers the legacy bequeathed to her and a strength that, until now, she never knew was possible.

Tear Me Apart by J. T. Ellison - Competitive skier Mindy Wright is a superstar in the making until a spectacular downhill crash threatens not just her racing career but her life. During surgery, doctors discover she's suffering from a severe form of leukemia, and a stem cell transplant is her only hope. But when her parents are tested, a frightening truth emerges. Mindy is not their daughter. The race to save Mindy's life means unraveling years of lies. Was she accidentally switched at birth or is there something more sinister at play? The search for the truth will tear a family apart... and someone is going to deadly extremes to protect the family's deepest secrets.