The Secret Letters

by Abby Bardi

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BLURB:

When thirty-seven-year-old slacker-chef Julie Barlow’s mother dies, her older sister Pam finds a cache of old letters from someone who appears to be their mother’s former lover. The date stamped on the letters combined with a difficult relationship with her father leads Julie to conclude that the letters’ author was a Native American man named J. Fallingwater who must have been her real father.

Inspired by her new identity, Julie uses her small inheritance to make her dream come true: she opens a restaurant called Falling Water that is an immediate success, and life seems to be looking up. Her sister Norma is pressuring everyone to sell their mother’s house, and her brother Ricky is a loveable drunk who has yet to learn responsibility, but the family seems to be turning a corner.

Then tragedy strikes, and Julie and her siblings have to stick together more than ever before. With all the secrets and setbacks, will Julie lose everything she has worked so hard for?

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Excerpt:

The casket was a double-wide, with painted flowers on the side like a circus wagon. Pam said it looked like hippies had scrawled on it with crayons while tripping.

“She’s at peace now,” one of our idiot cousins said to someone I half-recognized from when my mother used to drag us to West Virginia, where she was born. “Just a bunch of goddamn hillbillies in the Mountain State,” she always said, like she was Martha Stewart.

“Shut up,” Pam muttered in the cousin’s general direction, smiling like she was saying something nice. I hoped she planned to provide snark during the funeral, since I didn’t know how I would make it through otherwise. My other sister Norma was in the front pew sobbing. We were keeping our distance from her, not because of anything in particular, but because we always stayed out of her way if we could. It didn’t pay to try to comfort her, since anything you said would be the wrong thing.

The casket was closed, thank God. Our mother had left strict instructions about this and everything else when she was still conscious. Even while dying, she was a control freak, and amazingly vain for someone who weighed just shy of 400 pounds, even with terminal cancer. “You’re beautiful,” we always said to her in a Hollywood voice, “don’t ever change.” She knew we were just messing with her, but she always smiled and patted her hair.

“That’s a hell of a casket,” I said.

“Sure is purty.” Pam’s eyes were red. I hadn’t looked in a mirror since early morning when I’d slathered on eye makeup, but I’d been crying all day, too, and probably looked like a slutty raccoon. “Is Timmy here yet?”

“Haven’t seen him. It’s so crowded.” I scanned the room.

“Did any of these weirdos actually know her?”

“I don’t know. I bet those fat guys were football players at her high school.” I wiped my eyes, though I knew it was a bad idea, smear-wise.

“Oh, there he is.” Pam pointed to the back of the room and I spotted our older brother. He was wearing a dark suit that made him look like a Mafia don, talking to some blond guy. She tried waving, but he didn’t notice. His eyes were on the casket. He hadn’t seen our mother in almost a year, and I was sure it was hard for him to believe she was gone. Tough shit for him, I thought. He could have come here when it would have made a difference. Now it didn’t matter to anyone what he did.

“Is The Asshole coming?” I asked, referring to our father.

“No, he says he has a schedule conflict.”

“Probably golf. You’d think he could at least manage to show up for this.”

“At least he’s clean and sober.”

“So he says. He’s probably still banging down Zombies at strip clubs.”

“Try not to be bitter, Julie. It’s unattractive.”

“Bitter? You think I’m bitter?”

As the minister cut in and began to read the eulogy my mother had probably written for him, my mind started wandering like I was in grade school waiting for the bell to ring. I tried to concentrate, but I couldn’t. Every so often I’d tune back in and hear things that weren’t true. Her devotion to other people. Her service to the community. Her wonderful family life—I could just about hear her voice coming out of the guy’s mouth. I didn’t know where she found him, since she never went to church. I figured he was an actor she hired to play a minister, and made a mental note to mention this to Pam.

As he droned on in his phony actor voice, I closed my eyes and imagined walking through the woods on the hill behind our house. Most of it was gone now, bulldozed to make room for the townhouse development just over the ridge. I made a path through the old trees, and the dogs ran in circles around me. Ahead of me was the pond, though in real life it wasn’t there any more either, except for the hints that sometimes bubbled up in people’s driveways. I was going to dangle my bare feet in the water. I could hide there all day, and no one would know where I was. Then I would run back through the trees to our house, with the dogs behind me, and my mother would be there, and Frank, and Donny.

When I opened my eyes the minister was gone, and some cousin who hadn’t seen my mother in years was reading from a wrinkled piece of paper. She was stumbling over the words, maybe because it was Mom’s loopy handwriting, or maybe she couldn’t read. It was Mom’s life story minus all the bad parts and made going to high school in East Baltimore, meeting The Asshole, and having five children with him sound like an E! True Hollywood Story. Norma was born six months after the wedding, and it didn’t take a mathematician to figure out the facts, but the cousin glossed over that, and the ugly divorce, and finished with the happy ending, my mother finding true love with Frank and then having little Ricky. Ricky, on my left, burst into loud sobs. I put my arm around him and he cried onto my shoulder. I could smell he’d been drinking again. I would have pulled him onto my lap like I used to, but he was a big boy now. When I looked at him with his tattoos, dreadlocks, and piercings, I still saw that cute little blond guy

and felt how much we had loved him. We still loved him that much, but it was complicated.

Pam leaned across me and held his hand. “You’ll be fine, sweetie,” she whispered to him, though we were pretty sure he wouldn’t.

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Abby Bardi is the author of THE BOOK OF FRED. She grew up in Chicago, went to college in California, then spent a decade teaching English in Japan and England. She currently teaches at a college in Maryland and lives in historic Ellicott City with her husband and dog.

https://twitter.com/abbybardi?lang=en

http://www.abbybardi.com

Buy Link:  http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Letters-Abby-Bardi-ebook/dp/B00VPOCZ2G/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1438116811&sr=8-1&keywords=abby+bardi

 Interview with Abby Bardi:

What do you write?

I write mostly novels, though I’ve also written short stories. My stories have been published in several anthologies and journals, and I recently published a short-short in Monkeybicycle http://monkeybicycle.net/when-we-lived-at-the-y/ . For the past few years, I’ve been writing a lot of poetry, but so far no one has seen it.

What genre do you favor?

I don’t write in a specific genre, though right now I’m working on a novel that seems to be speculative or science fiction. I didn’t really intend it, but that’s how it’s working itself out.

When did you realize you wanted to be a writer?

I’ve been writing more or less constantly since I was first able to hold a pencil, but I didn’t decide I wanted to be a writer, professionally speaking, until I was about thirty and I started being able to finish novels I’d begun. Before that, I’d get about fifty pages in and then fizzle out. When I started finishing novels, I got to thinking maybe I could publish them, but that ended up taking a while. By the time I published my first novel The Book of Fred I was already on my third agent.

What do you think is the best way to publish these days?

I’m not sure what the best way is, since things are changing so rapidly, but I have loved working with HarperCollins Australia in publishing The Secret Letters as an e-book. They’re been wonderful to deal with, and the whole process was incredibly efficient and smooth. And it’s fun doing a virtual book tour instead of actually traveling. I’m in my pajamas right now!

What are your favorite genres to read? Why?

I was a graduate student in English for a long, long time, and my favorite genre, if it is a genre, is nineteenth-century British literature. For the past few years, I’ve been kind of hooked on books that are sort of chick-thrillers, I guess you’d call them—Gillian Flynn, Tana French, novels with mysteries and atmospheric settings. I like books that are kind of plotty, which is why my favorite authors are Dickens and Shakespeare. You can’t beat their plots.

Do your characters talk to you?

Well, they talk, but they don’t seem to realize I’m listening. I feel like I’m eavesdropping on their conversations, as opposed to actually interacting with them. They talk a lot to each other.

How do you approach starting a new book?

For me, each book has begun with an image I can’t get out of my mind, and then, a first line. If I start writing and I get a tingling feeling, I continue. I write continual plot outlines and synopses from the very beginning, then deviate from them.

What is your writing process?

Because I teach, I can really only write in the summer. During the school year, I’m devoting all my energy to grading papers and avoiding committee meetings (kidding!), and I can’t seem to get into the “zone” of inhabiting a novel, where the novel starts to seem more real than my own life and I wander around talking to myself. They frown on this in a workplace. So every summer, I begin work on a novel on May 15. Sometimes I spend the summer break actually writing, sometimes rewriting, sometimes editing, and sometimes just wasting my time, but summer is when I get in the zone.

What are the best writing books or blogs you’ve ever read?

For me, the best book on writing was not a book on writing at all: The Artist’s Way, by Julia Cameron. It’s a twelve-step course in enhancing creativity and a magical journey through the creative mind.

What are your non-writing hobbies, or what do you do to relax?

I belly-dance and walk my dog. Not simultaneously. Well, okay, sometimes it’s simultaneous.

What was your best date ever?

My best date ever was my first date with my husband. We went to an open mic where we both performed (we’re singer-songwriters) and then kissed. It doesn’t get any better than that.

Navy SEAL or cowboy?

Cowboy.

Chocolate or chips?

Chips.

If you could have a superpower what would it be? Why?

Invisibility. I think the “why” is obvious: so I could eavesdrop on people without their knowing.

Fancy restaurant or picnic?

Fancy restaurant. Stop, you’re making me hungry.

Beer or wine?

Beer.

Favorite author?

Tie between Dickens and Shakespeare.

Smooth or hairy?

I assume you mean dogs. Here’s a picture of B.B. Look at that sweet face.

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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION 

 

Abby will be awarding an eCopy of The Secret Letters to 3 randomly drawn winners via rafflecopter during the tour, and choice of 5 digital books from the Impulse line to a randomly drawn host.

Enter to win a copy of the featured book – a Rafflecopter giveaway