Secrets Among Us introduces readers to Margaret Finn, a matriarch who lives her life in the Northwestern United States, as removed and as connected to the pulse of the 20th century as her island home is to the continent. Margaret raises two daughters, Nora and Allison, mostly on her own, has a longtime woman friend, Fiona Gregson, who accompanies her until she chooses to leave, and is one of those rare characters who exemplify living a life without regrets.
In this story of strong-headed, independent women (and equally independent men), a mother’s best planned decisions cannot prevent her daughters Nora and Allison from suffering the angst of their own adulthood, and having to find their own way to each other from years of estrangement, or accept that they may never be the close sisters of fairy tales or their own imagining. The Finn women do not walk an easy road: they all have secrets, frailties, even fears, that cannot be conquered, or healed, except head on.
The novel explores women’s relationship to nature, painting the setting for the novel not only as beautiful landscape, but as an influence on the characters as well.