THE SECRETS OF US

Foster sisters grown to adulthood share unspeakable secrets that bind them together even as they tear them apart.

Krystal Benson and Nichole Fischer have always been close, and not just because their birthdays are only two weeks apart. At the foster home where stern farm widow Mrs. Wheeler reared them with her own daughter, Veronica, after their families abandoned them, they were inseparable until the day they ran away. Even now, years later, they live in the same Texas town and talk constantly, holding back no secrets from each other. So Krystal is shocked when Nichole, brought to Riverside East Hospital from a house fire that seriously injured her husband, Aiden, acts so aggressively that she’s sedated, dosed with antipsychotics, and tied down. She’s beyond shocked when Detective Dean Sparks tells her that the evidence indicates that Nichole set the fire herself and deliberately kept her husband from escaping. Why would Nichole have possibly done such a thing? Krystal wonders, even though she’s so keenly aware that the foster sisters’ escape from Mrs. Wheeler’s farm is bound up in a secret that’s haunted Nichole ever since. As Krystal watches Aiden’s wealthy family close ranks against her sister and prepare to file a criminal complaint against her, Berry unreels a series of flashbacks to those fatal last days at the farm that unleash a perfect storm of terrors past and present.

Though the answers aren’t as powerful as the questions, you’ll be relieved just to wake up from this nightmare.