Between Sisters

April 14, 2003
Differences between siblings couldn't be more extreme than they are in this overwrought feel-good novel by Hannah (Distant Shores), a tale about two estranged sisters. Meghann Dontess is a hotshot, well-to-do Seattle divorce lawyer in her 30s, entirely focused on her career. Her younger sister, Claire Cavenaugh, a single mom living in a backwater town in the Pacific Northwest, takes care of her five-year-old daughter and helps her father run his low-key lakeside resort. The half-sisters were raised by a neglectful mother, who finally abandoned them for Hollywood when she won a starring role in a science fiction series. Meghann was 16 and Claire was nine; Meghann had already essentially raised Claire herself, and after their mother left, she tracked down Claire's biological father. Sam Cavenaugh was thrilled to be reunited with Claire, but Meghann suddenly found herself motherless and sisterless all at once, and numbed the pain by pouring herself into school, college and career. Now she's horrified because Claire has recklessly fallen in love with a country singer whom she's about to marry. Their absentee mom suddenly steps in to get him a recording contract, but before there can be a happy mother-daughter reunion, Claire is diagnosed with a brain tumor. Only Meghann, with her worldly connections, can come to the rescue. The melodramatic plot is something of a stretch, especially when Hannah ties it all together with a happy ending. Some devoted fans will enjoy the sisterly bonding, but the broad-strokes characters will disappoint more demanding readers of women's fiction. (Apr. 15)Forecast:Hannah has a solid track record, as indicated by Ballantine's 125,000 first printing and one-day laydown, and the publisher's creative marketing campaign includes a free book offer for the sisters of online reviewers. But readers may not settle indefinitely for Hannah's subpar storytelling. Author tour.

April 15, 2003
Sisters Claire and Meghann, once close as children, are now in their mid-thirties and have a distant and strained relationship. Meghann is a successful divorce attorney, Claire is managing a somewhat run-down combination resort motel, and neither can understand or appreciate the choices the other has made. When Meghann is violently threatened by the husband of a client, she is forced by her law partner to take a long-overdue vacation. At a loss for what to do, she reluctantly decides to visit Claire and discovers that her sister is headed for the altar with a man she feels is not a good marriage prospect. The two sisters want to be close again, but every word and gesture seems only to drive them further apart. Eventually, the two women must face a life-threatening crisis together, testing their resolve as sisters. While loaded with improbable coincidences and a melodramatic story line, Hannah's latest work (like her other books, e.g., Distant Shores) is rich in the details and nuances of family relationships. Readers who enjoy Luanne Rice or Susan Wilson will certainly be pleased to discover Hannah. Essential for most popular fiction collections. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 2/1/03.]-Margaret Hanes, Sterling Heights P.L., MI

Copyright 2003 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2003
Hannah returns to a minor character, Meghann, from " Distant Shores" [BKL My 1 02], and explores her life in-depth as she and her sister confront the past in order to have a better future relationship. They share a bitter childhood and find it difficult to trust each other, but for Meghann it goes deeper as her inability to trust anyone leads to a dangerously promiscuous lifestyle. Both sisters feel betrayed by the other, and now lead very different lives. Meghann, a shark of a Seattle divorce attorney, has been in therapy for years. Claire leads a simple, small-town life, and now tells her sister that she's getting married. Meghann initially tries to save her sister from what she believes will be a disaster since she doesn't believe in love, only in prenups, but eventually she adopts a more positive attitude and takes the first step toward healing the rift. Then Joe arrives, a wanderer with his own issues. Change comes gradually but with such finesse that the reader will enter the characters' relationships and make them her own as Hannah transcends the mundane in this gratifying, five-hankie story.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2003, American Library Association.)