Genre: Women's Fiction
My Review - 5 Stars
This is romance author Molly O’Keefe’s women’s fiction debut as Molly Fader. I love her romance novels so I was curious how her women’s fiction might compare. The connections are there: she’s one of the best in the business when it comes to rich character development and the exploration of relationships. Only in this case, the focus is more on the relationship between two sisters and their mother than the love interests. (Side note: it’s interesting to see quite a few romance authors taking a stab at women’s fiction in the past few years.)
The story is told through four female POVs: sisters Lindy and Delia, their mother Meredith, and Delia’s teen daughter Brin. The characters are strong and well-developed. I was especially drawn to Lindy’s arc, as someone who went away and now it being drawn back in and whose life has not turned out the way she imagined. I really enjoyed her burgeoning relationship with Chief Singh, who is a total dreamboat.
Multiple POVs give us great insight into the family dynamics. Digging in to who knows what was fascinating. There are secrets in this family: again and again, Lindy and Delia mention how the McAvoy way is to essentially bury things under the rug. But you can only bury things for so long before they start to rise to the surface. I wanted to know the secrets and to better understand the pervasive dread that made me burrow even deeper into the story.
The way the Fulbright House featured in the story—or perhaps loomed—gave it definite gothic vibes. The house is a specter. We know something went down at that house but we don’t know what, only that it changed the course of the McAvoy women’s lives in two distinct ways. First, it figured into the death of Lindy and Delia’s dad when they were kids. Second, something that is not revealed until the end of the book and warrants a content warning. (See the spoiler tag in the CWs at the end of this review for details.) Once the truth is revealed, it was handled well but please exercise caution as needed.
This story was enthralling and Fader’s gift for prose was on full display. If Fader decides to write more women’s fiction, I will certainly keep reading more in this vein.
CW: past death of a parent, drowning, grief, stroke, hospitalization, postpartum depression, shoplifting
Spoiler CWs (highlight bracket to see): [second degree burns, past rape, unexpected pregnancy]
Synopsis
What drove their family apart just might bring them back together...
It's been seventeen years since the tragic summer the McAvoy sisters fell apart. Lindy, the wild one, left home, carved out a new life in the city and never looked back. Delia, the sister who stayed, became a mother herself, raising her daughters and running the family shop in their small Pennsylvania hometown on the shores of Lake Erie.
But now, with their mother's ailing health and a rebellious teenager to rein in, Delia has no choice but to welcome Lindy home. As the two sisters try to put their family back in order, they finally have the chance to reclaim what's been lost over the years: for Delia, professional dreams and a happy marriage, and for Lindy, a sense of home and an old flame--and best of all, each other.
But when one turbulent night leads to a shocking revelation, the women must face the past they've avoided for a decade. And there's nothing like an old secret to bring the McAvoy women back together and stronger than ever.
With warm affection and wry wit, Molly Fader's The McAvoy Sisters Book of Secrets is about the ties that bind family and the power of secrets to hold us back or set us free.
Buy The Book:
Amazon (affiliate link) | Barnes & Noble
Disclosure: I received an advanced copy from Graydon House in exchange for an honest review.
