I Carry Your Heart by Barbara A. Luker

Abby passed away leaving granddaughter Krista to discover a family secret hidden for six decades; a secret of passion so strong it would change all of their lives and forever change what they thought they knew about the family matriarch. Yet knowing the truth and deciding what to do with that knowledge were two different things and as her own love affair with a childhood friend is just beginning to blossom, Krista is faced with accepting what she learned about the grandmother she loved and needing to share her newfound knowledge with the rest of the family. Would the secret Abby protected for so long tear them apart? I Carry Your Heart is a story of undying love, the sacrifices we make for those we love, and the unbreakable strength of family.

Category: Contemporary Tags: Barbara A. Luker, Family Drama, love, secrets

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About the author:

Hello from the natural wonder that is Minnesota, my friends! As a lifelong resident, you can probably tell already that I am proud of my state and the community that I live in. Born and raised in Saint Peter, I also have a full-time job working for the City in the City Administrator's Office. I'm a Certified Municipal Clerk and work with and for the City Administrator and the City Council. But there is much more to me than my city job and I look forward to the day I can retire and devote more time to writing. I Carry Your Heart is my second published book with the first, Remembering You, coming out in 2020 just as the pandemic shut Minnesota and the rest of the country down!

I'm a huge sports fan with the Minnesota Wild leading my list of favorites and I love to support animal charities like our local animal shelters, the internationally acclaimed Raptor Center and Home for Life, an animal shelter that takes in dogs, cats and other creatures deemed unadoptable that other shelters may have put down. HFL gives these poor animals just that…a Home for Life!

As an author, I also love to read with a wide variety of genres capturing my interest and I love music…listening, playing, singing, but to this day I remain my third-grade piano teacher's biggest disappointment.

What inspired you to write your book?

My journey as an author started a lot later in life than others, but when it started, it didn't stop. My first manuscript came to me in a dream that wouldn't go away. Finally, unable to get the story out of my mind, I finally wrote it out and shared it with friends and family. That was the beginning of a journey that would eventually find me publishing one of those manuscripts just so my mother could have an author in the family!

Black Rose Writing published I Carry Your Heart in 2022 and the story also came to me in a dream. I've realized most of my best ideas come that way and not to ignore them. This story, set in a dual timeline between the 1960s and present day, is complete fiction but for those who grew up then, it will evoke memories of middle class America in the heart of the country.

Here is a short sample from the book:

If Krista thought the walk home would bring clarity about the situation, she was sadly mistaken. Instead, all it did was make the dilemma harder and by the time she walked into her own house and carefully tucked the box away in the bottom of her bedroom closet, she had no more idea what to do with her discovery than she had before. Sitting on the end of the bed staring at the closet door, all she could do was shake her head in confusion.
Alex was right. Nan had obviously wanted her to find the box and everything in it or she wouldn’t have changed the will, but why not just come out and tell her instead? The two were together every day with ample opportunity for Abby to share with her granddaughter, so why put her through all this?
Nerves on edge, Krista paced the house until well into the wee hours of the morning; stopping every so often to stare at her favorite photo of Nan on the mantle while wavering between excitement and anger at the position her grandmother had put her in. Her imagination ran wild with the secrets the letters could contain and questions about why, after all this time, any of it was a secret. In this day and age, a handwritten letter was rare enough, but to find hundreds of decades old letters all nicely tied in bundles had to mean whomever penned the notes had been important to Nan.
It was that thought that finally prompted her to go back to the bedroom and once again remove the box from the closet. Taking a seat on the floor by her bed, she opened the box, before removing the bundles one at a time and spreading them out on the floor in front of her. The postmarks went back as far as 1960 and continued every year until the last stack, which had been postmarked more recently. Selecting the bundle with the oldest postmark, she estimated there were a couple dozen envelopes in the group and she finally admitted to herself that not reading them had never seriously been an option. For whatever reason, Nan had chosen her for this task and she couldn’t let her down. With shaking hands, she gently pulled out the single sheet in the first envelope and read the strong masculine handwriting.
“My dearest Abby…..it’s only been a week since I last held you in my arms, but it feels as if a lifetime has passed….”