Sisters One, Two, Three

Star (Carpool Diem) crafts a moving story of a woman searching for the truth about her childhood and the secrets of her family’s past as she grapples with her own life. Alternating chapters tell the story of Ginger Tangle’s time growing up with her siblings and her domineering mother, and her present-day adult life in New Jersey where she’s having difficulties with her teenage daughter, Julia. When the Tangle children were still young, a tragic accident at the beach in Martha’s Vineyard occurs, shaping the three sisters in drastically differently ways: Ginger becomes so risk-averse that it pushes her loved ones away, Mimi fills her life with distraction until chaos takes over, and Callie vanishes altogether. Uncovering the truth of her past may not be the perfect fix, but Ginger feels deeply that only by facing up to the true history of that day on the beach will she find recovery and understanding. Delightful, heart-wrenching, and honest, this book is a lovely examination of memory, the past, and how, despite flaws, the strength of family ties remains throughout years of tumult and misunderstanding. Agent: Elizabeth Winick Rubinstein, McIntosh & Otis. (Jan.)

This review has been corrected; an earlier version misstated that the mother character dies in a tragic accident--she does not.