Secrets
The car is traveling very fast. I look across at Dad. He’s staring fixedly ahead, and that’s right, that’s what you should be doing when you drive a car. Only … only I don’t think that Dad’s watching the road. He sees something else. I see it too. The body. The dirt falling on his face. I’m scared. I was scared before. Scared by the dead body. Scared more by what Dad did, and what he saw, and what he felt. But this is worse. The car is going faster and faster, and suddenly I know, I know we’re going to die, too. He wants us to die. I’m too scared even to scream, and then I look ahead, and there’s a huge truck rushing toward us, and the car is sliding across the lane, toward the truck, and I scream.
* * *
I blinked. The scream still echoed in my ears, but the vision had gone. I looked around the garden, at the dead fronds of the tree fern hanging across the steps, at the jungle wilderness at the bottom of the gully. I had been … where had I been? Nowhere, dickhead! I shook my head, trying to clear away the last traces of—what had it been? Hallucination? Or memory? It must have been an hallucination. But the conviction gripped me, He meant us to die.
Mike is a typical teenager. Or not. For Mike is beginning to change, to see things that nobody else can see: creatures that never existed.
Or did they?
Mike knows he's going crazy, but he can't help thinking his father knows what's happening to him.
But Mike's father has spent his whole life denying the shadows in his mind. He can't bring himself to tell his son that the visions, the feelings, the shadows ... are all too real.
Dave Gordon, Mike’s best friend since he was two, is the only one Mike dares talk to about what's happening to him. And Dave, cheerful, funny, everyone’s favorite, is in despair. For Mike is his rock, and now the rock is crumbling.
For Dave, too, has a secret.
Medallion Press
This is a cleverly worked out, clearly written and believable story hich will be read with relish by most fantasy and horror story addicts and even though I don't usually enjoy either of those genres, I too, was totally hooked into the story.
Barbara Murison, Around the Bookshops, February 2006.
the book grips the reader and builds outstanding tension with amazing skill. A roller coaster ride
Teenage reviewer, Around the Bookshops, February 2006.
Exceptionally well written from beginning to end, Secrets by F.M. McPherson is a gripping fantasy tale ... Deftly depicting the estranged life of the sixteen-year-old, Secrets carries readers through the gripping story of the young man, his father, and his only friend who has just as deep a secret as himself. An intricate novel ideal for those who enjoy mythic fantasy fiction, Secrets is very highly recommended reading.
Midwest Book Review
McPherson presents an original premise that is part Teen Wolf and part Fear Street, exploring the complexity of coming-of-age, fathers and sons, friendship, and trust.
VOYA (Voice of Youth Advocates)
This is a coming of age story that is refreshingly different because Mike is Pack yet has human emotions. The bond between Mike and the human Dave is beautiful to behold, a friendship that is true and pure. The protagonist’s father almost destroys his family because of his need to deny what he is. There are many lessons that young adults take away from SECRETS but learning is easy because it is told in a fantasy context so as not to overwhelm the reader.
Harriet Klausner
