The Secret Of Us. Liesel Schmidt
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When your other half leaves you…
After her fiancé breaks up with her in ‘their restaurant’, leaving her with no explanation other than an apology scrawled on a napkin, Eira no longer feels at home in North Carolina. So she leaves for the Florida coast, hoping that rebuilding her life will be easier somewhere new. But while her new home may hold no trace of the past, life doesn’t always turn out the way you planned…and suddenly, a chance meeting turns Eira’s life upside down.
…how do you know who you are?
Finally faced with the opportunity to ask her questions about love, lies, and the life she thought was hers, Eira realises that hearing the answers is going to hurt. Yet if she is brave enough to listen, finding the missing piece of the past might lead her to a brighter future than she ever thought possible…
The Secret of Us is the bittersweet new novel from Liesel Schmidt, perfect for fans of Cecilia Ahern, Lucy Dillon and Jojo Moyes.
Coming Home to You
The Secret of Us
Liesel Schmidt
HQ
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2015
Copyright © Liesel Schmidt 2015
Liesel Schmidt asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
E-book Edition © June 2015 ISBN: 9781474033589
Version date: 2018-07-23
LIESEL SCHMIDT
lives in Pensacola, Florida, where she spends her time writing, drawing, and reading everything she can get her hands on. She is currently working on her next novel and spends most of her days busily writing freelance for a list of local magazines that sometimes makes her head spin in a dizzy attempt to keep all the deadlines straight! When she has a few free moments, Liesel plunks away at her blog, Finding Words (http://fyoword.blogspot.com/), where she posts product reviews and offers her readers a peek at the inner musings of a writer slogging her way through the challenges of living a creative career and early-widowhood.
Having harbored a passionate dread of writing assignments when she was in school, Liesel never imagined that she would ever make a living at putting words on paper, but life sometimes has a funny way of working out…When she’s not writing, reading, or drawing, Liesel likes to indulge her guilty pleasure of watching competition television shows like Top Chef, Chopped, and Project Runway. Follow her on Twitter at @laswrites
To my editor, Clio, thank you for giving my words the chance to find life in other people’s hands and in their hearts. Thank you for believing in me!
This book is dedicated to my family, who showed so much faith in my dreams of writing and never once doubted that I could do it. I love you and thank God for you everyday! Thank you for believing in me, for encouraging me, and for supporting me––in so very many ways. Always always, always remember how much I love you.
Contents
Book List
Acknowledgement
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
November 2005
I burned them all when I got home that day, a thick stack of bridal magazines that were dog-eared and flagged with a rainbow of Post-its that peeked from the edges of the pages. It’s strange, the acrid smell that comes from burning magazine pages – glossy and slick and heavily coated in ink. The pile seemed to burn painfully slowly as I watched, perched on the couch in my darkened living room,