la muse books

A richly moving novel of intricate family relations by award-winning Australian author John Clanchy.

Three sisters revisit the coastal house where they’d spent their childhood summers. Neither Grace nor Rose, now both in their sixties, know why they are there for the first time in decades. But neither has been able to resist the summons of their imperious older sister, Sarah. As the days of summer unfold, the intimate narratives of the sisters’ lives unfold. Each sister remembers the tragic fragments of a common past, but whenever they try to fit those fragments together, they find they never quite do. Exactly why has Sarah summoned them to this last summer together, and why now? And why does she let day after day go by without telling them? Is she ill? Has it something to do with the estate, the house, the gardens, the orchards? What is Sarah’s secret? And why do the thoughts of all three sisters return time and again to their brother Billy?

Like L. P. Hartley’s THE GO-BETWEEN, or the past-haunted stories of William Trevor, SISTERS reminds us the past is never truly past. That even the strongest bonds between siblingscan be stretched to breaking point by the resurrection of long buried sorrows.

Read John Clanchy’s deeply humane novel SISTERS now and discover the mystery of emotions embedded in each sister’s secreted past.