When The Weird Sisters (#458) by Eleanor Brown was first published several years ago, I resisted reading it because all the reviews emphasized that the patriarch of the Andreas family was a Shakespeare-spouting professor and renowned authority on The Bard. I respect Shakespeare's influence on literature and even our day-to-day speech (I did visit Shakespeare's cottage in Stratford-on-Avon and attended a production of Romeo and Juliet there - just for the record Timothy Dalton made a gorgeous Romeo!) but I didn't relish the idea of a whole novel centering on him. I'm glad to say it doesn't. Thank you, Literary Circle, for changing my mind about The Weird Sisters.
The Weird Sisters is what the three unmarried Andreas daughters christened themselves after they put on a schoolgirl production of Macbeth, paring it down to the only worthwhile roles: the witches. Rosalind, Bianca and Cordelia are now grown and have gone their separate ways until their mother's illness summons them home to take care of her in the tiny college town of Barnwell. Putting their own lives on hold gives them the chance to pause and assess their own lives. None are living the lives they had dreamed of as they grew up; quite the reverse. The examination of how each of the sisters has failed in some way, and their initial convictions that nothing can be ever be set right again at this point make their ultimate redemptions a journey you'll gladly undertake in their company.
I found myself surprised by how much I cared about Rose, Bean and Cordy by the end of the book. The Weird Sisters wasn't at all what I expected: it was so much more.
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