Barbara O’Neal · 2019 · Novel
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When We Believed in Mermaids is a family drama about two sisters and a secret. Kit, an emergency room doctor in Santa Cruz, has spent fifteen years grieving her sister Josie, who was believed killed in a terrorist attack on a train. Then Kit glimpses a woman who looks like Josie in news footage of a nightclub fire in Auckland, and she travels to New Zealand to find the truth.
Told from both sisters’ viewpoints, the novel moves between the present and a childhood by the beach, shaped by a difficult home life and a troubled teenage boy who entered their lives. Barbara O’Neal explores why someone might abandon their identity, how early trauma echoes into adulthood, and whether honesty and forgiveness can repair a broken bond.
Key insights
- Unresolved childhood trauma rarely stays in the past. It can shape adult choices, relationships and even the urge to disappear and start again.
- Siblings can remember the same childhood very differently. Hearing the other person’s version is often where understanding and repair begin.
- Running from pain can bring temporary relief, but unfinished business tends to follow you until it is faced directly.
- Secrets kept to protect others can do as much damage as the truths they hide, especially within families.
- Forgiveness is a process rather than a single moment. It often starts with understanding why someone made their choices, without excusing the harm.
Read it if you enjoy emotional family dramas about sisters, secrets and second chances, with vivid coastal settings.