Allison Glenn lives the perfect life. She is the perfect student, the perfect daughter, the perfect athlete, but is she the perfect sister? When Allison's sister, Brynn, was younger, Allison was her hero. But as the girls grew into teenagers and Allison spent more time out of the house with her friends and at school events, Brynn felt lost. Allison, for the first time, felt free from the many pressures on her when she met a young man and fell in love. She lost her virginity to him, but soon realized all her plans to leave the small town she grew up in were falling apart the more time she spent with her boyfriend. So she did what she had to do. She broke it off and went back to studying for her college entrance exams.

A pregnancy that was hidden from everyone, including her family, is the turning point for this perfect teenager who loses everything she had ever dreamed of the night she gives birth. But Brynn is there for her when she needs her the most.

Before the night is over, an infant daughter is found dead in the river, Allison spends days in the hospital recovering from blood loss, then is taken into custody where she confesses to killing her newborn baby.

After five years in prison, Allison is let out on parole to a halfway house in her home town. Her parents have wiped her out of their lives and her sister, who is now living with their grandmother, will not speak to her. She is able to get a job at a bookstore and works for a woman who has a five-year-old adopted boy, Joshua.

Charm Tullia lives with her step-father who is dying from cancer. Five years earlier she held a newborn baby in her arms and cared for him for almost a month before having to choose between caring for her dying stepfather or caring for the baby. At 15, she couldn't do both, so she took the baby to a safe drop zone and left him. Now she watches him grow up each time she goes to the bookstore.

One fateful night and one perfect girl's actions tie all these people together in a way that changes their lives forever.

THESE THINGS HIDDEN is a story of a girl's fall from grace. The pressures on a teenager can have dramatic results and a sister's love may not be enough. Heather Gudenkauf has captured heart-wrenching emotion and spilled it out on the pages of her moving novel, which will touch you and leave you bleeding for the characters in THESE THINGS HIDDEN. A remarkable story.

Book Summary

Heather Gudenkauf, acclaimed author of the New York Times bestseller The Weight of Silence, returns with a provacative, powerful and deeply moving novel about one little boy and the women who love him.

When teenager Allison Glenn is sent to prison for a heinous crime, she leaves behind forever her reputation as Linden Falls' golden girl. Her parents deny the existence of their once-perfect child. Her former friends exult her in her downfall. Her sister, Brynn, faces the whispered rumors every day in the hallways of their small Iowa high school. It's Brynn - shy, quiet Brynn - who carries the burden of what really happened that night. All she wants is to forget Allison and the past that haunts her.

But then Allison is released to a halfway house, and is more determined than ever to speak with her estranged sister.

Now their legacy of secrets is focused on one little boy. And if the truth is revealed, the consequences will be unimaginable for the adoptive mother who loves him, the girl who tried to protect him and the two sisters who hold the key to all that is hidden.

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