These Things Hidden

These Things Hidden by Heather Gudenkauf

Allison Glenn, once the golden girl in her parents eyes, is being released from a women's correctional facility after serving 5 years for a horrific crime that she committed at the age of fifteen. Reluctantly, she enters a halfway house that her attorney has found for her and soon finds employment at a local book store. Allison so desperately wishes to put her past behind her, but the taunting behavior of her fellow halfway house occupants and the indifference that her family portrays leaves her heavy-hearted and doubtful.

Allison's younger sister, Brynn, has always hovered in the shadow of her near-perfect sister. Yet after her sister's arrest and conviction, she shoulders the burden of her sister's sin alone and soon self-destructs. Brynn is sent packing to her grandparents where she begins to thrive. She wants to forget Allison, yet is unable to do so.

Claire Kelby owns the local book store and hires Allison Glenn as a part-time employee. Claire and her husband, Jonathan have an adopted five-year-old son, Joshua. As an infant, Joshua had been left abandoned at the Linden Falls fire station.

Charm Tullia, a young woman in her early twenties, lives with her stepfather, Gus, a retired fireman who is terminally ill with lung cancer. She chose to stay with her stepfather after her mother decided to leave Gus. Charm continues to care for him as his illness progresses, all the while attending nurses' training courses.

A heart-wrenching read in which four female characters weave a tale of secrets, secrets that entwine and eventually unravel.