The Sisters

March 21, 2016
British author Douglas’s debut thriller, the winner of the Marie Claire Debut Novel Award, probes the complex emotional landscape of female friendship. Dazed with guilt and grief from the recent death of her twin sister, Lucy, Abi Cavendish moves from London to Bath and latches on to the charming, mercurial Beatrice, a stranger who resembles Lucy. Beatrice craves friendship as intensely as Abi does, quickly inviting her into the opulent Georgian house she shares with a flock of glamorous artists as well as her handsome brother, Ben. Yet the pleasures of this bohemian life—and a growing flirtation with Ben—sour for Abi when precious letters from her sister disappear and she becomes the target of vicious pranks. The reader flips between Bea’s and Abi’s perspective, each voice eliciting both sympathy and doubt. The plot sags at times, stretching credibility with a fast-arriving fleet of characters who look exactly like other characters (casting the movie will be easy), building toward a slightly overwrought ending leavened by the tang of psychological ambiguity. Agent: Juliet Mushens, Agency Group (U.K.).