January 6, 2017 – JO LAMBERT

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Alice: Beautiful, kind, manipulative, liar.
Clare: Intelligent, loyal, paranoid, jealous.
Clare thinks Alice is a manipulative liar who is trying to steal her life.
Alice thinks Clare is jealous of her long-lost return and place in their family.
One of them is telling the truth. The other is a maniac.
Two sisters. One truth.
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MY REVIEW

After reading The Girl Who Lied I was looking forward to the arrival of Sister Sister and I wasn’t disappointed.

When Clare was seven her parents divorced and her father Patrick took her younger sister Alice to America to live. Although over the years Marion Kennedy has received infrequent calls from her ex-husband, she has no idea where he’s living or how Alice is. Marion has never been able to come to terms with the loss of her youngest child. After all these years she is still buying and storing Christmas and birthday gifts for a daughter she hopes one day will return. Clare too, has spent time and money in an unsuccessful search for her father and sister.

Clare is now a partner in a law firm. She is married to artist Luke Tennison and has two young daughters, Hannah and Chloe. They all live with Marion in the old family home. Luke paints and acts as house husband and the day-to-day family dynamics work well – it’s a happy home. Then out of the blue Marion receives a letter from Alice. Patrick has recently died and her stepmother Roma has given her their address. She asks if she can come to stay and bring her friend Martha with her. However, in the end Martha can’t make it and Alice arrives alone.

From the moment she arrives, Marion dotes on her, eager to make up for the years she lost. For Clare it is a happy ending after years of searching. So why is she finding it so hard to like Alice?

I was glued to this book. OK some of the things I saw coming, but others I certainly didn’t. Right from the beginning I liked Clare. She seemed unfazed by everything, keen to take on challenges at work as she successfully juggles her career and home life. After Alice arrives things slowly begin to unravel. She’s not happy with her sister’s behaviour – the close way she interacts with Marion, her over familiarity with Luke and her keenness to play happy families with the girls while she’s at work. There are times when she feels Alice is trying to slip into her skin; to replace her. She berates herself for having these jealous feelings but the unease around Alice keeps resurfacing. Luke is a laid back, easy going character who obviously loves his wife and kids. He has infinite patience but even that becomes tested to the limits in the face of Clare’s behaviour.

It was interesting to watch quite innocent things become monumental problems as Clare struggles to convince herself she’s not losing her mind. But everyone seems to be on Alice’s side and everything that happens seems to have a logical explanation. However when things go badly wrong at work and she finds herself suspended, she knows if she’s to save her marriage and her job, she needs to take drastic action.

Sister Sister has everything – conflict, family secrets and betrayal, all of which go to make it thoroughly deserving of the five stars I’ve given it.

My thanks to NetGalley for a pre-publication copy of this book.

About Sue Fortin

91copd67ull-_ux250_ Published by Harper Collins’ imprint Harper Impulse, Sue Fortin writes gripping dramas.

Sue is an Amazon best selling author, The Girl Who Lied, reaching #1 in the UK in 2016. Her novel, Closing In, became a best seller in 2014 reaching #1 in the Kobo Romantic Suspense chart. Her originally self-published debut novel, United States of Love, was awarded the INDIE Brag Medallion and later when published by HarperImpulse was short-listed for the Joan Hessayon Award (2014). Sue was also short-listed for the Festival of Romance, New Talent Award (2013). Sue blogs regularly with the on-line writing group The Romaniacs (www.theromaniacs.co.uk).

Lover of cake, Dragonflies and France. Hater of calories, maths and snakes. Sue was born in Hertfordshire but had a nomadic childhood, moving often with her family, before eventually settling in West Sussex.

Sue is married with four children, all of whom patiently give her time to write but, when not behind the keyboard, she likes to spend her time with them, enjoying both the coast and the South Downs, between which they are nestled.