Review by Booklist Review
A dying mother desperately tries to bring her family back together in this secret-filled suspense novel that delivers an emotional punch. Audrey has accepted that she doesn't have long to live, but she can't accept that her grown daughters haven't spoken in years and won't even allow her granddaughters to be in the same room with one another. Determined to get to the bottom of Jess' anger with her sister, Lily, Audrey moves into Jess' west London home, but her efforts to bring her family back together before she dies fail at every turn. Audrey and her daughters all have secrets, but have they kept them from one another too long to fix the damage they've caused? Beckerman (The Dead Wife's Handbook, 2014) builds tension with narration from all three women, disclosing just enough from each to keep the pages turning. Suspense shares the stage with family dynamics, going beyond Audrey and her daughters to the next generation. The novel addresses some difficult topics, and Jess is a somewhat unlikable character, but readers will cheer for Audrey as she works to untangle her family's long-held secrets.--Tracy Babiasz Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Beckerman (The Dead Wife's Handbook) does an excellent job of illustrating the corrosive power of secrets in this achingly real tale of two sisters and the mother who hopes to mend their tattered relationship. Lily's life looks perfect--a high-powered marketing job, a beautiful daughter and loving husband--through the eyes of her long-estranged younger sister, Jess, a single and struggling mother to a teenage daughter, and a senior location manager for a TV show in London. Their mother, Audrey, is dying of cancer and is determined that her daughters will reconcile before she passes away. Jess's intense anger toward her sister is a mystery to both Lily and Audrey, and Beckerman teases out both intriguing details and red herrings before letting readers in on the secret. The author combines authentically imperfect characters and a well-paced, plausible plot. Jodi Picoult's fans will find much to love in this often heartbreaking story. (Oct.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A mother and her two daughters' bittersweet journey through three decades is tinged by all-encompassing grief, steadfast love, and deeply held secrets.Audrey Siskin is a 62-year-old mother and grandmother facing her own mortality who realizes that the life she is leaving behind is not what she wants it to be. Finding herself pregnant and married at 18 had completely altered the life she expected to lead, and while she has never sung on stage, visited New York City, or even been the English professor she'd always dreamed of becoming, she has had a fulfilling life as a wife, school librarian, mother, and grandmother. But now, an aggressive form of cancer has her facing her own approaching death while her daughters, Lily and Jess, continue their 30-year estrangement from one another. Audrey dedicates the last months she has left to doing some of the things that her 16-year-old self aspired to do and trying to figure out a way to reconcile her children. The story unfolds in chapters written from three points of view: those of Audrey, Lily (the wealthy older sister, with a seemingly fabulous husband, house, job, and life, who yearns to reconnect with her younger sister), and Jess (the younger sister, scraping by, consumed with hatred for Lily because of the events of a devastating summer when she was 10 and her sister, 16). Author Beckerman (The Dead Wife's Handbook, 2015) is masterful in her storytelling. The narrative is fractured through time and viewpoint into large, weighty chunks and small, sharp shards, and she joins these together seamlessly into a tense tale that is much stronger for its delivery. While the male characters are, perhaps, one-dimensional, the female characterseven secondary ones such as teenage granddaughters Phoebe and Miahold the limelight in turn and are fully wrought.A gripping story about love and loss. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
