Judith Henry Wall Three Sisters

Three Sisters

Judith Henry Wall

Simon & Schuster, Jun 2007, $15.00

ISBN: 0743297059

On her sixtieth birthday, Widow Penelope informs her three daughters that she moving to France to be with a man Jean Claude none of them met. Additionally they learn that their paternal grandmother did not die in childbirth as they were told.

After the first earthquake shocks pass, the three siblings react differently to the revelations. Mother of two Vanessa, who has marital troubles and hates her job and suburban lifestyle, cannot cope with her mom running off with some interloper. This leads to a family feud with her sisters, associate editor of Stiletto magazine Ellie and hand and foot supermodel Georgiana. Penelope wants her daughters happy so she offers to pay for a retreat. The trio takes her up on her offer, but decides to go to Montana to learn what they can about their grandmother Hattie, whom they assumed died in childbirth but recently found proof that she gave her son (their father) away. Instead Hattie is alive and so is another offspring, the uncle of the three sisters, who is running for governor; Hattie needs the story of the one she gave away to her Aunt Vera remain concealed.

This family drama starts off with a simple premise of the adult daughters battling over their widow mother's plans to remarry and relocate, but effortlessly converts into three women in danger. The story line picks up the pace once the siblings choose to "vacation" in Montana in order to meet their apteral grandmother and never slows down until the final confrontation inside a cave. Although the ending seems simply off kilter, fans will appreciate the three sisters meeting "grandmommy" dearest.

Harriet Klausner