Rating: ***
Tags: Fiction, General, Brothers and Sisters, Family secrets, Family Life, Domestic Fiction, Families, Oregon, Lang:en
Summary
Cathy Lamb, the acclaimed author of
Julia's Chocolates and
The Last Time I Was Me, delivers her most heartwarming
novel to date as three sisters reunite during a family crisis.
Isabelle has worked hard to leave Trillium River, Oregon,
behind as she travels the globe taking award-winning
photographs. It's not that Isabelle hates her family. On the
contrary, she and her sisters Cecilia, an outspoken
kindergarten teacher, and Janie, a bestselling author, share a
deep, loving bond. And all of them adore their brother, Henry,
whose disabilities haven't stopped him from helping out at the
bakery and bringing good cheer to everyone in town. But going home again has a way of forcing open the secrets
and hurts that the Bommaritos would rather keep tightly closed
Isabelle's fleeting and too-frequent relationships, Janie's
obsessive compulsive disorder, and Cecilia's self-destructive
streak and grief over her husband's death. Working together to
look after Henry and save their flagging bakery, Isabelle and
her sisters begin to find answers to questions they never knew
existed, unexpected ways to salve the wounds of their
childhoods, and the courage to grasp surprising new chances at
happiness. Poignant, funny, and as irresistible as one of the Bommarito
sisters' delicious giant cupcakes, Henry's Sisters is a novel
about family and forgiveness, about mothers and daughters, and
about gaining the wisdom to look ahead while still holding
tight to everything that matters most. When the Bommarito sisters, Isabelle and Janie, hear that
their domineering mother is going in for open heart surgery,
they must forget the trauma of their childhood and return to
their riverside Oregon hometown, Trillium River. Taking care of
their mother and their demented grandmother (who believes she's
Amelia Earhart) and watching after their mentally handicapped
brother, Henry (possessed of an almost saintly, unconditional
love for people), the independent sisters try to find a place
in the world they've left behind. Lamb (
The Last Time I Was Me) delivers grace, humor and
forgiveness along with a litany of family trauma, which might
seem heavy-handed in lesser hands. Fortunately, this finely
pitched family melodrama is balanced with enough gallows humor
and idiosyncratic characters to make it positively
irresistible.
(Aug.)
When the Bommarito sisters, Isabelle and Janie, hear that
their domineering mother is going in for open heart surgery,
they must forget the trauma of their childhood and return to
their riverside Oregon hometown, Trillium River. Taking care of
their mother and their demented grandmother (who believes she's
Amelia Earhart) and watching after their mentally handicapped
brother, Henry (possessed of an almost saintly, unconditional
love for people), the independent sisters try to find a place
in the world they've left behind. Lamb (The Last Time I Was Me)
delivers grace, humor and forgiveness along with a litany of
family trauma, which might seem heavy-handed in lesser hands.
Fortunately, this finely pitched family melodrama is balanced
with enough gallows humor and idiosyncratic characters to make
it positively irresistible. (Aug.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division
of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --Publishers
Weekly
Ever since the Bommarito sisters were little girls, their
mother, River, has written them a letter on pink paper when she
has something especially important to impart. And this time,
the message is urgent and impossible to ignore River requires
open-heart surgery, and Isabelle and her sisters are needed at
home to run the family bakery and take care of their brother
and ailing grandmother.From Publishers Weekly
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed
Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Review