The Art of Inheriting Secrets: one woman's journey into her mother's past

The Art of Inheriting Secrets by Barbara O’Neal is a story of discovery of a loved one’s past holds the key to one’s future. After the sudden death of her mother, Olivia Shaw learns she has inherited an English estate and the title of countess. With grief still raw and her head swimming with so many questions, Olivia leaves her home in San Francisco and heads to England, unsure what she will find but determined to unravel her mother’s secrets. Once in England, Olivia learns that Rosemere Priory, a magnificent estate, is in desperate need of repair and holds the secrets to her mother’s past. With personal issues and a job back home needing her attention, Olivia can’t help but fall in love with the English village, its residents and Rosemere itself. Will she return to San Francisco? Will she stay in England? Will Olivia finally understand why her mother kept it all a secret?

The Art of Inheriting Secrets is a great story of a woman’s discovery of her mother’s past and finding a future she didn’t know she wanted. However, where the story fails is that it leaves too many loose ends. The story builds up to this great mystery as to why her mother left and never told her about her life in England. The author is great with the descriptions and yet poor at unfolding the mystery to a satisfying end. The end felt rushed and left me asking WHAT? As I closed the final chapter. I still had questions. The writing is beautiful. I truly felt as if I could experience the weather of the English countryside. The author’s descriptions of the food truly made me hungry! There is a romance aspect that was beautiful and added to the tension. Overall, I did enjoy the story, despite the unsatisfying ending. I recommend The Art of Inheriting Secrets. 

The Art of Inheriting Secrets is available in paperback, eBook and audiobook

When We Believed in Mermaids: a story of finding answers and healing

When We Believed in Mermaids by Barbara O’Neal is the story of Kit Bianci who is sent on a mission to discover if a woman in New Zealand is her dead sister. Josie Bianci was killed 15 years ago in a terrorist attack on a Paris train. At least that's what Kit believed. Until she sees her on the news. While taking a break, Kit, an ER doctor in Santa Cruz, California, sees live coverage of a club fire in Auckland, New Zealand. There she sees a woman, known locally as Mari Edwards, stumbling in the background that looks like her sister. In fact, the resemblance is almost too unbelievable. At the urging of her mother, Kit travels to Auckland to discover if Mari is her sister and discover why she has hidden herself for so many years. Her journey begins with memories of the past: their childhood days on the beach, the adopted teenage boy who becomes their older protective brother, and the series of tragedies that upend their lives and haunt them today. What secrets will be uncovered? Will the truth haunt her further? One thing is certain, their lives will never be the same again. 

The opening lines of the first chapter hooked me, but by the fourth chapter, I wondered if I would finish it at all. I pushed through, hoping it would get better. The identity of the woman known as Mari is revealed fairly quickly. The real mystery is a bit more murkier that details the series of tragedies that tore them apart. And a side story about a murdered 1930s actress. I did not care for Kit at all. She was cold, unfeeling and just bland. Right off the bat, Kit laments that “it’s hard to be the children of parents who are obsessed with each other.” Ok…..? She describes her father’s passion for her mother as “intense, sexual and possessive” but wasn’t sure she would call it love and her mother’s love for him was “to excess more than she loved her children.” Ummm, ok? I enjoyed Mari’s perspective a bit more but even her story was resolved too neatly and too easily. For the majority of the book, it read like two very different stories, Kit’s and Mari’s, that would eventually merge and very quickly get resolved. Overall, the story was bogged down with too many side stories, flashbacks and a resolution that felt rushed and unrealistic. I do not recommend When We Believed in Mermaids.

When We Believed in Mermaids is available in paperback, eBook and audiobook.