Unspoken Words
Linda Joyce
Publication date: April 22nd 2025
Genres: Adult, Women’s Fiction
What happens when the truth you’ve hidden becomes the key to your greatest fear—and your greatest hope?
For years, Jane Landry has carried a secret that could break hearts and heal them all at once. Her son, Christopher Marcus, is the light of her life—but he’s also the boy no one knows about. Not his father, her ex-husband Mark, nor his wife Maggie, or his sister Suzanne, Jane’s best friends from childhood. Now, with a cancer diagnosis threatening her future, Jane must summon the courage to confess her secret. She prays they’ll embrace Christopher as family before time runs out.
But just as Jane takes the first step, tragedy strikes—Mark is killed in an accident after learning he has a son. The devastating loss leaves Jane grappling with how to face Maggie and Suzanne, the two women she’s avoided for years but now desperately needs. Her truth risks alienating them, yet the stakes are higher than ever. Christopher needs a home. Jane needs to know her boy will be loved when she’s no longer there to protect him.
As Jane uncovers the secrets Maggie and Suzanne have been hiding, she realizes she’s not the only one carrying the weight of the past. Old wounds, unexpected betrayals, and the search for forgiveness weave together in a story about love, loss, and the lengths we’ll go to for family.
Set against the vivid backdrop of New Orleans, Unspoken Words explores the messy, beautiful journey of redemption and the bonds that hold us together—even when stretched to their breaking point.
Discover a story that will break your heart, heal your soul, and stay with you long after the final page.
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EXCERPT:
Katrina had destroyed my city in August of 2005. Afterward, she huffed away like a diva without a backward glance. Her coming and going from the city I loved had proved more dramatic than my own.
I paid the cabbie for the wild ride and then stood on the sidewalk in front of the entrance to the mausoleum. My hands shook when I slipped the strap of my purse over my shoulder. My knees wobbled, but I remained upright. My heart thudded like a bass drum in a second line parade.
Thudding so hard it cut off my breath. Paralyzed, I stood in the merciless Louisiana sun.
Humidity clung to my skin like olive oil on a sweet potato before roasting in the oven. My reflection in the mausoleum’s glass doors showed a tidy dress, tidy shoes, tidy hair.
Outside, calmness.
Inside, untidy screams.
I swallowed back a ball of fear, took a first unsteady step, then another. Plodding, I entered the building and nodded to the guard at the reception desk.
“Need help finding a loved one?” He scrutinized me as though he recognized me.
“No, thank you.”
“Sign in here.” He rose and pointed to an open guest book.
I wrote Jane and started to write Maucele beside it to prove I had every right to be there but changed my mind and scribbled Landry instead.
My father had told me where to find Mark. I searched for the correct aisle. My leather flats shruffed against the hard marble floors. Mausoleums reminded me of morgues I’d seen on TV, not burial grounds. A collection of people who were dead—they couldn’t hear if I made noise. But I continued on my tiptoes just in case.
Finding the correct hallway, I let go of a raggedy breath and claimed a seat in the middle of a long, cold granite bench, then extracted a week-old envelope from my purse.
Did the words inside hold the truth of what Mark wanted?
Clutching the official message, I fought against the impulse to wad up the paper and throw it at him, the same way I’d thrown heated words the last time before we parted. Then, he’d been alive. Able to fight back. I wanted him to fight now.
Anguish spewed like liquid from a shaken can of Nehi soda. “NOoooo! NOoooo! NOoooo! Dammit, Mark.”
“Miss Landry, are you okay?” The guard’s voice echoed down the wing of the mausoleum along with the sound of footsteps beating a path in my direction. “Ma’am?”
“I apologize. Grief hit me.”
“Excuse me? Who hit you?” He frowned as though I were a naughty child.
“Never mind. I’ll be quiet.” My inner pain fought for further release, but my outer calm took control.
His eyebrows became a unibrow. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave if you are unable to contain yourself.”
“It won’t happen again.” I waved apologetically.
His toe-to-head scan told me he was trying to decide if he had a dangerous mental case and needed backup.
Author Bio:
Linda Joyce believes stories are as integral to her life as breathing. She shares the joys and agonies of characters and often wishes their stories would continue far beyond “The End.” She lives metro-Atlanta with her very patient husband and their three fur babies—Jake, Maxence, and Sugar. Linda’s addicted to Cajun food and Japanese food. She’s a fan of smooth jazz. She will deny traditional jazz music hurts her ears—that could get her banished from her hometown, New Orleans. Her current life’s adventure includes learning enough Kanji to be able to read a Japanese newspaper.
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