Who was Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis? She was a wife, mother, artist, editor, and world traveler. A bright young woman who rose to unparalleled celebrity. One of the world's most inspiring and influential women of her day, she has become arguably the most important female icon of all time. Yet she also was a woman of passion and deep emotions, who wanted to experience all that life had to give. How did she feel about it all? She never told. Jackie said quite famously, "I want to live my life, not record it." Jackie remains elusive, her interior life hidden, her soul masked behind sunglasses and an enigmatic smile. For the first time, these fictional memoirs tell Jackie's story in Jackie's voice--with all her joy and wit, grief and bitterness, gentleness and fortitude. Ruth Francisco boldly plunges into the subtext of Jackie's public life, psychology, and sexuality, beyond her dazzling mythic exterior, reimagining Jackie's feelings and thoughts between the lines of recorded history. In this riveting epic tale, we follow Jackie's journey from her privileged yet wrenching youth, through the exaltation and suffering of her marriage to John F. Kennedy, to the shattering despair of her losses, exile, and loneliness. As she learns to forgive her jealous rival, Maria Callas, and her abusive second husband, Aristotle Onassis, Jackie begins to find redemption, ultimately discovering peace through her children and her work. Powerful, poignant, and inspiring, The Secret Memoirs of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis is a sweeping novel, a mythic fable of the trials and tribulations of the female soul. "This is a wonderful work of research and imagination. With this book Ruth Francisco underlines the power of fiction when it comes to telling the truth about who we are."--Michael Connelly, bestselling author of LINCOLN LAWYER "Wow, Ruth Francisco is a wonderful writer. Her talent is enormous. She has both the eye and heart of a poet and each of her scenes is like a perfect painting. Her re-creation of biographical characters and historical places and events is amazing. I can't remember when I first read a writer of such immense ability. I think she's probably a major literary figure in the making."--James Lee Burke, author of CRUSADER'S CROSS "Intriguing. Imaginative.""--Orange Coast magazine "A convincing voice for America's most glamorous first lady.... Francisco's prose is like a dream--the sort of dream that throbs and twists underneath the consciousness of everyday life. This is a work of fiction, but in its frayed ends and emotional rawness, it reads as true.... This is a book most anyone can admire and--more crucially--slip into and inhabit."--Edge magazine "[Francisco's] goal was to portray a three dimensional woman. She succeeds brilliantly.... Ruth Francisco...has brought Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis to life on the pages of The Secret Memoirs... Francisco's prose is outstanding.... A real winner."--mostlyfiction.com "...one of the most audacious novels of the year....The author has immersed herself in the known facts and added her own imagination to create a book that is going to please a lot of people..."--bookview.com Ruth Francisco is the author of the critically acclaimed literary mysteries Confessions of a Deathmaiden and Good Morning, Darkness. She currently lives in Los Angeles. Chapter One My Story As I leave the squealing-crashing-honking street and step inside Saks Fifth Avenue, the same department store where my father, Black Jack, gave me a charge account at age ten, the gentlest of artificial breezes greets me. This is the woman the world observes. Dressed in a deceptively simple sleeveless shift, hair in a scarf, I pull off my windshield sunglasses and wander up and down the aisles of glistening glass shelves. I stop to admire the crystal-cut perfume bottles and seek out my favorite---Guerlain's Jicky. I spray the tester bottle guiltily, like a secretary on her lunch hour with neither intention nor means to make a purchase. Lavender fills the air---Provence lavender warmed by the midday sun. I move on before memories overwhelm me. I pass by blue-and-white porcelains and soft leather purses in amber browns and reds---the colors of exotic hardwoods. I admire the cascading silk scarves---trefoils and fleurs-de-lis, posies and primroses, lions, dragons and unicorns, blue, gold, and red---all carefully displayed so as not to appear cluttered. My eyes drink in the beauty. With each step into the lair of treasures, I forget myself, growing lighter, taller, anonymous. Beauty calls me to the present, a narcotic, like Circe's seductive caresses, banishing unpleasant thoughts and past humiliations. Long before I knew about grief or suffering or sadness, I found solace in beautiful things. Long after I owned all that one could possibly imagine, without need or desire for more, I found delight in luxury. Fondly I remember Mummy unwrapping boxes packaged in paisley Florentine papers and golden str