Brief

An ambitious sixteen year old woman who dreams of leaving her small fishing town to follow her dreams, learns the heartbreak of reckless love. The daughter she gave up at birth has to learn the same lesson, but will she follow in her mother’s footsteps and make the same hard choices?

What We Liked

- A journey of acceptance for many characters, this story is intertwined and full of heartbreaking reunion. For young women in this world, there are many pitfalls to avoid. Young mothers tackle the gutting loss of relinquishing their newborn children and the opening of deep wounds when they finally reconnect.
- This story can work well as an isolated drama with a good twist. There is enough of a blank canvas with these characters that they could house a strong polemic or a simple dramatic tragedy arc. The strength of the story is in the interconnected sense of loss and longing experienced by mother and daughter who both go through uniquely relatable traumas when giving up their children.
- The story focuses on the daily lives of these characters while the underlying narrative of reunion lurks in the interior of their minds. There is quite a bit of tension that could be drawn out over the course of two or more seasons. Even when the the mother/daughter reunions do occur, they often create more drama for the characters. Despite being reunited, their lives take devastating turns that allow for great B and C plots among the characters.
- Key points: Stories are deeply intertwined; Relationships are malleable and weighty; Characters have different moral imperatives; Time period (50's to 70's) makes adoption issues more taboo; Protagonist and daughter are both strong likable characters.

Synopsis

Julie is a smart 16 y.o. form a small fishing town. She has a good family and good prospects for college, but ends up falling in love with an older man who is her boss. She gets pregnant and her love rejects her, so her family takes her to a nunnery called The Fold. There she can finish her high school education and have her child without everyone in the town gossiping behind her back. When her baby is born she names her Cinderella, as she was born at midnight, and then the nuns take her newborn daughter away.

16 years later we meet her daughter, Marina. Marina is living in New York, hoping to become a writer. She meets a young art curator and they fall in love. When she becomes pregnant, he abandons her. Her adopted parents find out and take her to The Fold to help her.

She names her newborn daughter Seton and after one night together they are departed. Marina lives with the trauma for six years, when she meets a nice man her age named Michael. They form a strong bond and decide to meet each other’s parents. When Marina goes to meet Michael’s family she is struck by her connection with Michael’s little sister, Cordelia. They look and act similar, and both have a passion for writing.

They get engaged and Marina finds out from her cousin that she is adopted. Not long after they find out that Cordelia is not only adopted as well, but she is also Marina’s daughter, Seton. They go to reunite with Cordelia when she has a terrible accident and dies tragically. The families are heartbroken, and Michael and Marina drift apart.

A year later Marina is writing a novel. Her publisher has a strong reaction to her manuscript, because it reminds her of her own life. It turns out Marina’s publisher is actually her mother, Julie, with a new name, and it takes some time for Marina’s mother to figure that out.

Distraught by her daughter’s death, Marina goes back to The Fold. She sees visions of her daughter returning to the water and follows them. Meanwhile Julie is speaking with Marina’s adopted parents, having reached out to them to talk. They inform her that Marina went back to The Fold and Julie goes looking for her.

They find Marina too late. She has already died, presumably drowned, after walking into the sea and letting it consume her. Julie decides to publish Marina’s book in memory of her, and name it Veil of Secrecy in her honor.

About The Author

Margaret Franceschini’s desire to write in a dramatic way began at a young age. Her passion for poetry and short stories can be traced back to early childhood, when she wrote about the creatures in her backyard. As she entered adult life and joined poetry sites, she was able to share her innermost feelings. Through poetry she began to write her first novel.