October 19th, 2026
Home | Log in!
❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤
Welcome to FreshFiction

Are you a reader
or an author?

Help us personalize your experience. Choose your role below.
You can always change this later using the switcher button.

or

You can switch anytime using the floating button.

Limited Time Fresh Fiction Access

Exclusive Marketing Opportunities for Authors

Curious about how Fresh Access helps authors gain more visibility and connect with active readers?

Discover premium promotional opportunities, enhanced exposure, and author-focused services designed to help your books stand out.

Read More →
On Top Shelf
📚 New Books This Week 📰 Latest News 🎪 Reader Games 👻 🎃 Halloween Contest Giveaways 🎃

October Reads Worth Falling For

Danger, desire, second chances, and unexpected romanceβ€”discover this month’s Fresh Fiction Featured Books.

Slideshow image


slideshow image
A poisoned cousin, a five-year-old's life, and a family with too many secrets.


slideshow image
Supernatural sparks fly
between a bookseller
& her hard-boiled ghost.


slideshow image
If Her Highness thinks I’ll let another man claim her and my child, she’s lost her royal mind. Sophaya’s mine.


slideshow image
She found a body. Then she started asking the wrong questions.


slideshow image
He ghosted her ten years ago. Now she’s stuck with him for Christmas.


slideshow image
She’s the lady everyone overlooks. He’s the prince who can’t look away.

The Things We Wish Were True by Marybeth Mayhew Whalen

Purchase

Add to Wish List


Also by Marybeth Mayhew Whalen:

Every Moment Since, September 2026
Paperback / e-Book (reprint)
Handle with Care, April 2026
Paperback / e-Book / audiobook
This Secret Thing, October 2020
Trade Size / e-Book
Only Ever Her, May 2019
Trade Size / e-Book
When We Were Worthy, September 2017
Trade Size / e-Book
The Things We Wish Were True, September 2016
Paperback / e-Book

THE THINGS WE WISH WERE TRUE
By: Marybeth Mayhew Whalen

Lake Union Publishing
September 2016
On Sale: September 1, 2016
276 pages
ISBN: 1503936074
EAN: 9781503936072
Kindle: B019K2JGYE
Paperback / e-Book
Add to Wish List

Women's Fiction

In an idyllic small-town neighborhood, a near tragedy triggers a series of dark revelations.

From the outside, Sycamore Glen, North Carolina, might look like the perfect all-American neighborhood. But behind the white picket fences lies a web of secrets that reach from house to house.

Up and down the streets, neighbors quietly bear the weight of their own pastsβ€”until an accident at the community pool upsets the delicate equilibrium. And when tragic circumstances compel a woman to return to Sycamore Glen after years of self-imposed banishment, the tangle of the neighbors’ intertwined lives begins to unravel.

During the course of a sweltering summer, long-buried secrets are revealed, and the neighbors learn that it’s impossible to really know those closest to us. But is it impossible to love and forgive them?