The Secrets Underneath

What if everything you thought you knew about your life was a lie but you couldn't remember the truth? And what if your body did remember and used physical symptoms to get your attention? If you confronted the truth, would your body heal? Would healing also demand that you forgive those who hurt you, lied to you, and betrayed you?

Emergency doctor Sean Thomas must answer these questions to get his life back.  His journey to the truth takes him down paths that challenge all he knows about healing, about relationships, and about life.

One cold November Seattle morning, Sean is nearly run over by a speeding SUV that then plunges over an embankment, crashing onto the highway 40 feet below. Sean saves six-year-old Michael Brennan who remains comatose in the same hospital Sean was in when he survived events that killed his family decades earlier.

After the boy's rescue Sean begins to have physical symptoms that force him onto medical leave. But more troubling is that during his "episodes" he travels to another realm in which he meets Michael's dead sister, and eventually others. There he learns that his path and Michael's are inextricably linked with similarities between his childhood and Michael's that raise painful questions.

Feeling like he's going crazy, Sean is determined to find out the truth. "The past is dead, Sean, leave it be," his bitter, broken aunt who raised him always said. But Sean knows he must uncover the secrets that have haunted him all his life and that now prevent him from working as a doctor. Secrets that have kept him from having the only things he's ever truly wanted: love and family.

Sean's journey upends everything he knows and believes. And after he learns the painful, horrible truth about his past, it will take all his emotional, spiritual, and psychological courage to forgive those who harmed him and move toward the healing he needs and the love he so desperately wants.

The Secrets Underneath is a story about how our choices to love and forgive - or to hold onto anger and resentment - affect our lives. The story illustrates the transformational power of love and the connection between physical healing and acceptance, forgiveness, and mercy.

Print book: 285 pages including book club questions