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Secret Keepers
In Teresa Tumminello Brader’s follow-up to her New Orleans memoir, Letting In Air and Light, Secret Keepers expands the question of whether we can ever truly know our loved ones. This collection of character-driven short stories delves intimately into romantic and family relationships—some fractured, some fragile, all troubled by mysteries for which there may be no clear answers. One woman convinces herself of a husband’s affair that may or may not be imagined; other families struggle to rebuild amidst the wreckage of hurricanes and severed family ties. Compelling stories of betrayal and regret intertwine with thoughtful depictions of strong women seeking more authentic lives. Within the familiar world of South Louisiana, Brader’s characters navigate obsession, loss, and a tentative hope that some connections are still worth trying to keep.
"Steeped in the cultures, languages, and sheer grit of New Orleans, the stories in Secret Keepers trace a haunting landscape of human loss and longing. The sorrow song of the City, of illicit love affairs, sexual fantasies, Katrina desolation—all set to a fevered beat—evoke a sense of place that is as real as rotten seafood after a hurricane or the rust on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Teresa Tumminello Brader knows southern Louisiana as only someone with deep historical roots in a place can, and these stories shine as evidence."
— Minrose Gwin, award-winning author of Beautiful Dreamers and The Accidentals
"Secret Keepers, as its title suggests, examines interiority and evokes the question: Can we ever truly know another person, or even ourselves? From the domestic to the speculative, Brader conjures in these stories the suppressed desires of everyday people; the quicksilver signals exchanged between lovers, family, neighbors and strangers. This is a collection that simmers with quiet tension.”
— Chin-Sun Lee, author of Upcountry
"Beset by natural disaster and disasters of their own making, the characters in Teresa Tumminello Brader’s short fiction collection, Secret Keepers, imprint themselves on our hearts like secrets of our very own. In prose as lush as a humid New Orleans night, these stories navigate the truths and lies and pains and joys of ordinary people in the most heartfelt ways. A must-read story collection."
— Gerry Wilson, author of That Pinson Girl and Crosscurrents and Other Stories
"Steeped in the cultures, languages, and sheer grit of New Orleans, the stories in Secret Keepers trace a haunting landscape of human loss and longing. The sorrow song of the City, of illicit love affairs, sexual fantasies, Katrina desolation—all set to a fevered beat—evoke a sense of place that is as real as rotten seafood after a hurricane or the rust on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Teresa Tumminello Brader knows southern Louisiana as only someone with deep historical roots in a place can, and these stories shine as evidence."
— Minrose Gwin, award-winning author of Beautiful Dreamers and The Accidentals
"Secret Keepers, as its title suggests, examines interiority and evokes the question: Can we ever truly know another person, or even ourselves? From the domestic to the speculative, Brader conjures in these stories the suppressed desires of everyday people; the quicksilver signals exchanged between lovers, family, neighbors and strangers. This is a collection that simmers with quiet tension.”
— Chin-Sun Lee, author of Upcountry
"Beset by natural disaster and disasters of their own making, the characters in Teresa Tumminello Brader’s short fiction collection, Secret Keepers, imprint themselves on our hearts like secrets of our very own. In prose as lush as a humid New Orleans night, these stories navigate the truths and lies and pains and joys of ordinary people in the most heartfelt ways. A must-read story collection."
— Gerry Wilson, author of That Pinson Girl and Crosscurrents and Other Stories
160 pages, Paperback
First published March 25, 2025
2 people are currently reading
19 people want to read
About the author
Teresa Tumminello Brader
9 books1,035 followersTeresa Tumminello Brader was born in New Orleans and lives near Lake Pontchartrain; the city, the estuary, and its denizens are the source of much of her inspiration. Her first book, a hybrid memoir/fiction titled Letting in Air and Light, was released on October 10, 2023, by Belle Point Press, and has been honored as one of three nominees for the 2025 One Book One New Orleans citywide read and literary outreach. Secret Keepers: Stories was released March 25, 2025, also from Belle Point Press.
Her stories, poems, essays and reviews have been printed in anthologies and links to others online can be found at her website.
Author photo by Christy Lorio
Her stories, poems, essays and reviews have been printed in anthologies and links to others online can be found at her website.
Author photo by Christy Lorio
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
Currently reading
October 2, 2025Yvettte and Rose 2025/09/30
I'm so glad to be back to reading this collection! Yvette and Rose are young adult sisters living with their single mother. The story begins with preparing for a hurricane, an almost mundane thing for which they've been through many times before. The story unfolds gently as a glimpse into the lives of this small family who love and live through life's more quiet progressions of change.
Update 2025.09.15 womp womp
The suspense is over. Secrets Keepers tied for a respectable second, though it was neck and neck for a possible first all during the "race."
I'm not sad, well, not very sad, because now I am released! Again I can start where I picked up reading solo. I was enjoying the fire out of it, so nothing to be sad about.
Watch this space for more story reviews as I resume.
Update 2025.09.06: the suspense is killing me! This is why I don't think I would like horse races. Secret Keepers came out strong, leader of the pack. Then about a week in, there was a sudden tie. A THREE WAY tie. Oh no, what does that mean? Then a few more days later, the other two went neck and neck and SK dropped to 2nd place, then 3rd place. All felt lost. But NOW, today, SK rallied and is back in 1st. Rather tied for 1st, the three way tie again. EIGHT more days to go.....go, go, GO Secret Keepers!
In progress...on temporary pause 2025/09/03. I'm waiting to see if this will become the group read for October with On the Southern Literary Trail. Fingers crossed!
Let's Play Two 2025/08/18
I think they call this micro fiction. It reminded me of poetry. It captures a thousand things about Dads, kids, and baseball in a mere paragraph.
Bikes 2025/08/15
Nostalgia, being a kid in the 1970s, was front and center in this story. As I read, I recalled how many dangers we escaped, often kept as secrets without remark, and how often we felt alienated by the world of adults. When the protagonist Anne faithfully but furtively reads "Can This Marriage Be Saved?" column in her mother's The Ladies Home Journal magazine, it hit me in the solar plexus once again, those half-secrets of the adult lives around us of which our own questions were barred. And we were fascinated.
Helter-skelter 2025/08/09
Like Mardi Gras and jambalaya, Louisiana is equally associated with off shore drilling. This story, a flashback to the rough and tumble oil industry of the 1970s gets it so right. Like thousands of others at that time, a Northerner leaves home to work on a rig in Gulf of Mexico, assigned the lowliest, dirtiest work for an enticingly fat paycheck even as a "worm" (newbies on rigs are still called that today). A "Yankee," he faces unfounded prejudice by a couple of ne'er-do-wells who pose as much real danger to a body as explosions or hurricanes. Brader's got some authentic masculine flex here.
The Fig Tree 2025/08/02
Brader deftly sprinkles both the soaring and soured sensations of a young woman being hopeless under a certain masculine spell, the kind made with the simple flash of a smile and no promises. First story read and I'm already smitten!
I'm so glad to be back to reading this collection! Yvette and Rose are young adult sisters living with their single mother. The story begins with preparing for a hurricane, an almost mundane thing for which they've been through many times before. The story unfolds gently as a glimpse into the lives of this small family who love and live through life's more quiet progressions of change.
Update 2025.09.15 womp womp
The suspense is over. Secrets Keepers tied for a respectable second, though it was neck and neck for a possible first all during the "race."
I'm not sad, well, not very sad, because now I am released! Again I can start where I picked up reading solo. I was enjoying the fire out of it, so nothing to be sad about.
Watch this space for more story reviews as I resume.
Update 2025.09.06: the suspense is killing me! This is why I don't think I would like horse races. Secret Keepers came out strong, leader of the pack. Then about a week in, there was a sudden tie. A THREE WAY tie. Oh no, what does that mean? Then a few more days later, the other two went neck and neck and SK dropped to 2nd place, then 3rd place. All felt lost. But NOW, today, SK rallied and is back in 1st. Rather tied for 1st, the three way tie again. EIGHT more days to go.....go, go, GO Secret Keepers!
In progress...on temporary pause 2025/09/03. I'm waiting to see if this will become the group read for October with On the Southern Literary Trail. Fingers crossed!
Let's Play Two 2025/08/18
I think they call this micro fiction. It reminded me of poetry. It captures a thousand things about Dads, kids, and baseball in a mere paragraph.
Bikes 2025/08/15
Nostalgia, being a kid in the 1970s, was front and center in this story. As I read, I recalled how many dangers we escaped, often kept as secrets without remark, and how often we felt alienated by the world of adults. When the protagonist Anne faithfully but furtively reads "Can This Marriage Be Saved?" column in her mother's The Ladies Home Journal magazine, it hit me in the solar plexus once again, those half-secrets of the adult lives around us of which our own questions were barred. And we were fascinated.
Helter-skelter 2025/08/09
Like Mardi Gras and jambalaya, Louisiana is equally associated with off shore drilling. This story, a flashback to the rough and tumble oil industry of the 1970s gets it so right. Like thousands of others at that time, a Northerner leaves home to work on a rig in Gulf of Mexico, assigned the lowliest, dirtiest work for an enticingly fat paycheck even as a "worm" (newbies on rigs are still called that today). A "Yankee," he faces unfounded prejudice by a couple of ne'er-do-wells who pose as much real danger to a body as explosions or hurricanes. Brader's got some authentic masculine flex here.
The Fig Tree 2025/08/02
Brader deftly sprinkles both the soaring and soured sensations of a young woman being hopeless under a certain masculine spell, the kind made with the simple flash of a smile and no promises. First story read and I'm already smitten!
July 11, 2025
Brader's debut collection (following up on the highly successful hybrid memoir Letting in Air and Light) once again mines the topic of secrets and New Orleans history and hurricane and flood aftermaths. Her characters are varied (from an oil rigger to housewives to young girls), and the stories that stood out for me were her exquisite brief flashes and her two dystopian imaginings, which ended the collection. Both stories could be expanded into novels: "High Heat" and "The Cusp," along with "Yvette and Rose," a story of two sisters born a year apart, a tale that is both menacing and absorbing.
June 30, 2025
There's a dreamlike sensation to this collection of artfully drawn short stories bringing the corners and edges of New Orleans to life. Images linger from the page, giving off rays of sun or shadow. I read the stories individually over time, then finally straight through in an appropriately sweltering afternoon into evening. My favourites are below; it's easy to begin with the first one, because I can't forget its' imagery.
The Fig Tree
When I'd finished reading The Fig Tree the first time, I thought, wait, that couldn't possibly have been only 4 pages, and so went back to the beginning - to check my eyesight, but really to see how this was accomplished, such a rich portrait of a woman's unhappiness, in a very specific time and place, the combination of the story's brevity and the depth of the detail. The longer you linger, the more you see. The pity I felt for Dairene, involved with the wrong man, melted into the New Orleans heat of the day, a desk fan whirring, an overripe fig close to bursting, Dairene fixing her A-line skirt as she gave in, again. I loved this piece.
Helter Skelter
Well, goddamn, we left off with shy school kids, bashful in their admiring of their teacher and her beau, and then tumble headfirst into the wilds of the life of a young man first seen hiding out behind an oil rig, breathless as thugs look to beat the hell out of him. You sense this has happened before, keeps happening, he's just trouble and more trouble, can't stop himself. The unexpected turn this story takes, late in the telling, is delicious.
Bikes
A brief story that reads like flashes of memory - some time in the past, where kids got ice cream floats and comics at the small town drugstores. Mothers tied chiffon scarves over their heads when driving, no point in wasting a beauty parlor trip. A girl is biking to a lake with her younger brother, unable able to keep up with him, and definitely thrown off by the neighbor kid who joins them. If she - Anne - and her brother Marc were to be photographed, you feel like the picture would be hazy, but their friend Scotty comes through in sharp relief. The story is a series of snapshots, until a closing line - a closing word! - takes us spinning through the rest of their lives. I looked back at the images I'd taken in and saw them completely differently. To do that with one word.
Secret Keepers
The story stays true to its title, a piece of family lore not to be shared, kept close to the skin in the narrator's pocket, even long after the secret itself had ceased to exist for a long, long time. This story also contains some prime examples of the author's ability to cover a span of ground in just a few quick sentences. For example, the narrator recalls a night out in the Parkway Tavern, meeting 2 older guys at the bar:
"You look familiar." Ed spoke for the first time. Heavy-set and with thick glasses and gray thinning hair, he looked much older than Phil. "What's your last name?"
"Minyard."
"You related to the coroner?" Phil asked.
"No. I get asked that all the time."
"Is your dad's name Sidney?"
It is. That's how small the town is. The tavern suddenly closes in.
I Can't Forget
A short short.
"... the phone rang, and I took a step away from you to the open guillotine window. Your dad had the receiver to his ear, and I knew it was his girlfriend calling."
Years of motherhood, from the shakiness of her child's infancy through the rumblings of college life, in 4 paragraphs. Like fresh running water, that fast and clean.
Underneath the Bough
An uneasy story of gracious neighbours who may not be as they first seemed. A shared dinner; a patio that seems welcoming through sliding glass doors - "suffused with a warm yellow light" - until one steps outside to find rusted metal pipes, disarray. Baked goods to bring home, at first pretty, then viscous. By the end I was imagining snakes, silently slithering under the porch.
Now I'm realizing I left out a story I made notes on (where?? Damn) - 2 sisters and a massive storm - you'll know it when you come to it! The journey is so worth the taking. Oh honey, I need an iced tea just thinking back on it.
The Fig Tree
When I'd finished reading The Fig Tree the first time, I thought, wait, that couldn't possibly have been only 4 pages, and so went back to the beginning - to check my eyesight, but really to see how this was accomplished, such a rich portrait of a woman's unhappiness, in a very specific time and place, the combination of the story's brevity and the depth of the detail. The longer you linger, the more you see. The pity I felt for Dairene, involved with the wrong man, melted into the New Orleans heat of the day, a desk fan whirring, an overripe fig close to bursting, Dairene fixing her A-line skirt as she gave in, again. I loved this piece.
Helter Skelter
Well, goddamn, we left off with shy school kids, bashful in their admiring of their teacher and her beau, and then tumble headfirst into the wilds of the life of a young man first seen hiding out behind an oil rig, breathless as thugs look to beat the hell out of him. You sense this has happened before, keeps happening, he's just trouble and more trouble, can't stop himself. The unexpected turn this story takes, late in the telling, is delicious.
Bikes
A brief story that reads like flashes of memory - some time in the past, where kids got ice cream floats and comics at the small town drugstores. Mothers tied chiffon scarves over their heads when driving, no point in wasting a beauty parlor trip. A girl is biking to a lake with her younger brother, unable able to keep up with him, and definitely thrown off by the neighbor kid who joins them. If she - Anne - and her brother Marc were to be photographed, you feel like the picture would be hazy, but their friend Scotty comes through in sharp relief. The story is a series of snapshots, until a closing line - a closing word! - takes us spinning through the rest of their lives. I looked back at the images I'd taken in and saw them completely differently. To do that with one word.
Secret Keepers
The story stays true to its title, a piece of family lore not to be shared, kept close to the skin in the narrator's pocket, even long after the secret itself had ceased to exist for a long, long time. This story also contains some prime examples of the author's ability to cover a span of ground in just a few quick sentences. For example, the narrator recalls a night out in the Parkway Tavern, meeting 2 older guys at the bar:
"You look familiar." Ed spoke for the first time. Heavy-set and with thick glasses and gray thinning hair, he looked much older than Phil. "What's your last name?"
"Minyard."
"You related to the coroner?" Phil asked.
"No. I get asked that all the time."
"Is your dad's name Sidney?"
It is. That's how small the town is. The tavern suddenly closes in.
I Can't Forget
A short short.
"... the phone rang, and I took a step away from you to the open guillotine window. Your dad had the receiver to his ear, and I knew it was his girlfriend calling."
Years of motherhood, from the shakiness of her child's infancy through the rumblings of college life, in 4 paragraphs. Like fresh running water, that fast and clean.
Underneath the Bough
An uneasy story of gracious neighbours who may not be as they first seemed. A shared dinner; a patio that seems welcoming through sliding glass doors - "suffused with a warm yellow light" - until one steps outside to find rusted metal pipes, disarray. Baked goods to bring home, at first pretty, then viscous. By the end I was imagining snakes, silently slithering under the porch.
Now I'm realizing I left out a story I made notes on (where?? Damn) - 2 sisters and a massive storm - you'll know it when you come to it! The journey is so worth the taking. Oh honey, I need an iced tea just thinking back on it.
May 28, 2025
A short story collection from the author of Letting in Air and Light . I always find it difficult to review these collections because they inevitably contain their share of weak stories and this one is no exception. There are however some gems here, Candles being one of my favorites. I took some time to adjust to the writing style, but once I did, I found I was being subjected to a refreshing honesty and sheer emotion. What more could I ask for?
April 10, 2025
What a wonderful collection of short stories. This follow-up to her beautifully written first effort , Letting in Air and Light, shows off her range as a writer. From the very realistic to the speculative to the surreal, she hits all the right notes in these stories with the theme of secrets running through them all. These stories are both nuanced and emotionally powerful.
August 18, 2025
I may be a bit biased because I'm mentioned in a wonderful note in the acknowledgements, but even without that its a great read.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews