DARK SECRETS is the first book in a series based on the life of a farm girl, OLLIE MCNEW, born in 1908 when the United States was becoming a world leader, and farm families made up over half of the population. Conditions for the Negro had worsened, women rallied for the right to vote, and social change in music, dance, and fashion filtered into rural areas. This book shows prejudice faced by Negroes, Gypsies, Jews, Indians, and women of that era. Ollie, born of Irish and Cherokee ancestry, is a middle child struggling to compete with an older sister and brother, yet showing unusual compassion for younger siblings. Accepting premonitions as guidance given by guardian angels, she displays wit and insight, yet sometimes incurs trouble when a stubborn nature overrules intuition. The book begins with Ollie trying to get home after receiving a head injury in an attack by two boys'the same boys that she thinks raped her friend and murdered a girl in a nearby community. She remains in a coma for five days. While comatose, she recalls dramatic events of her first fifteen years'occasions that reflect the life of a gutsy girl. They include the death of a young friend, strangers that steal a gun, drunks chasing a man of black Indian descent, a strange lizard, a starving family, infection in a girl's foot, robbers at the wagon yard, stray dogs that save Ollie from panthers, Gypsies, a fight, remembering the Great War, an ungrateful tramp, a dying aunt, a rabbit hunt in the snow, a pie supper, a trip to a carnival, a promissory note, rape and murder of a young girl, and secrets shared with her best friend. Ollie meets a young man and wavers between love and pursuing her dream of nursing. She chooses Roy and they begin repairing a two room sharecropper house where they will live and farm surrounding acres. Ollie has her first encounter with neighboring thieves when they attempt to steal her engagement ring, cook stove, and horse. Capable with the pistol she is wearing, Ollie reclaims her property and forces them to leave.