If you follow this blog, you know that I have been focusing on characters from my latest novel, Behind the Lies. A suspense story with plenty of free-ranging betrayal, it showcases the fast-paced life of Will Franklin, who faces unexpected professional and marital challenges while running an international biotechnology firm. 

A quick synopsis to catch you up—biotech exec Will Franklin’s boss Chet angrily announces that he’s about to fire him for reasons vaguely suggesting impropriety; then, just hours later, he succumbs to a critical illness and lands in the hospital on a ventilator, leaving Will few clues with which to untangle the mystery of his possible transgressions. 

Earlier blog posts feature Will the protagonist, Chet the boss, Bella the temptress, Charlotte, Will’s strong and brainy wife and Andrea, Chet’s second wife who turns to Will when Chet falls ill.  All are posted on my website and easily accessible on Goodreads as well. Today I’ll write about Amy, Chet’s estranged daughter from his first marriage.

After a volatile life marred by manic depression, Chet’s first wife died by suicide when Amy was only fifteen.  Given her mother’s refusal to manage her illness with medication to moderate her volatility and her father’s eventual inability to help her,  Amy grew up in a household of chaos and melodrama. Amy was overburdened with her mother’s issues and resentful of her father’s distance. When he overshared the shocking news that her mother was pregnant with another man’s child when she died, Amy broke down herself and an estrangement emerged between she and her father which neither attempted to bridge.

Amy struggled for years to process her trauma and eventually became a psychiatric nurse.   Chet moved on to a second marriage and fatherhood later in life. When Chet’s son with Andrea turned fifteen Chet realized how negligent he had behaved toward his older daughter at that age and regretful, he sought to re-connect. As he prepared for retirement and self-reflection, he apologized to her and hoped for a reconciliation. 

Reluctant at first, Amy finally relented and was allowing grace to emerge between the two of them when Chet was suddenly hospitalized and unresponsive, leaving her unable to gain closure with her father, and still estranged from his second wife and their son.

Will becomes the unlikely mediator between Andrea, Chet’s second wife, and Amy, his daughter, when she attempts to connect with the family she now wishes she knew better. Their bittersweet reunion over a zoom call with the doctor who needs permission to allow Chet to pass away is brokered by Will, the man both women trust. Ironically,  Will is haunted by the unknown reason that Chet no longer trusted him, with no way to find out the why of his perceived betrayal.

While this book is a corporate mystery with fraud and cybersecurity story lines, the family drama plays out in both Will’s and Chet’s families. Charlotte and Will must address his fling and its aftermath and Amy and Andrea must address the breach between them and whether it can be mended.

All three of my books include dramatic family stories and feature the promise of “found family”—not the one you are born to, but the one you need. In Behind the Lies Amy is damaged by the situation with her father’s irresponsible parenthood during her mother’s illness in over-sharing that she lost a half-sibling and not just a mother. How she deals with it on her own, and how she and her father approached a potential reconciliation too late, is a lesson worth noting. Family bonds can be broken and sometimes repaired; character is revealed through personal family challenges.