Why am I passionate about this?

I like books about big families, especially unusual ones, but I have only one sister and only one child, so when I set out to write about these families, I read about them first. We place so much importance on how kids are raised, what kind of childhood and home life and family they have growing up, what gifts and what challenges they’re bestowed by genetics, history, identity, society, circumstance. Siblings usually share all or at least most of these markers and yet turn into often wildly different adults. It’s also true that all those fine sibling balances – love/hate, adored/annoyed, admired/appalled, alike/different – are great fun to read and write.


I wrote

One Two Three

By Laurie Frankel,

Book cover of One Two Three

What is my book about?

From a New York Times bestselling author comes a timely, topical novel about love and family that will make you…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of King Lear

Laurie Frankel Why did I love this book?

When I first sat down to write a novel about three sisters, step one was to reread King Lear which is about exactly that. The three sisters in Lear are quite different from mine. Among other things, they like each other much less. But for that delicate sisterly balance between so-glad-I-have-you-to-share-the-burdens-of-an-aging-parent and I-might-actually-have-to-kill-you, nothing beats King Lear.

By William Shakespeare,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked King Lear as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Synopsis coming soon.......


Book cover of The Vanishing Half

Laurie Frankel Why did I love this book?

The twin sisters in The Vanishing Half share nearly everything and nearly nothing, which is a neat trick. They share a past – same childhood, same family, same upbringing, same community, same home, the same face even – and yet grow into adults who share none of the above nor even the same racial identity, never mind class, values, family, or future.

By Brit Bennett,

Why should I read it?

11 authors picked The Vanishing Half as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP BESTSELLER
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE
LONGLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE

'An utterly mesmerising novel..I absolutely loved this book' Bernardine Evaristo, winner of the Booker Prize 2019

'Epic' Kiley Reid, O, The Oprah Magazine

'Favourite book [of the] year' Issa Rae

The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Ten years…


Book cover of Sense and Sensibility

Laurie Frankel Why did I love this book?

Jane Austen was close with her sister and often has entire plots which hinge on the fact that you love your sisters, but also they drive you nuts and ruin your life and prospects, but also you’re probably sharing a sewing project or a bed or nearly dying together from doing something reckless like going for a walk in the rain. No one’s better than Austen on the way you’re stuck with your sisters so better learn to treat them with wry bemusement rather than apoplectic rage.

By Jane Austen,

Why should I read it?

8 authors picked Sense and Sensibility as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'The wit of Jane Austen has for partner the perfection of her taste' Virginia Woolf

Jane Austen's subtle and witty novel of secrets and suppression, lies and seduction, brilliantly portrays a world where rigid social convention clashes with the impulses of the heart. It tells the story of two very different sisters who find themselves thrown into an unkind world when their father dies. Marianne, wild and impulsive, falls dangerously in love, while Elinor suffers her own private heartbreak but conceals her true feelings, even from those closest to her.

Edited with an Introduction by ROS BALLASTER


Book cover of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

Laurie Frankel Why did I love this book?

I wouldn’t dare spoil what makes the sisters in We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves so special. You have to come upon it in the course of reading this absolutely perfect novel. But in the deepest, best, hardest, most unusual way, this is a novel about sisters – sisters in childhood, sisters as they grow, sisters as they become very different sorts of adults and make their way in the world together and apart.

By Karen Joy Fowler,

Why should I read it?

10 authors picked We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The New York Times bestselling author of The Jane Austen Book Club introduces a middle-class American family that is ordinary in every way but one in this novel that won the PEN/Faulkner Award and was a finalist for the Man Booker Prize.
 
Meet the Cooke family: Mother and Dad, brother Lowell, sister Fern, and Rosemary, who begins her story in the middle. She has her reasons. “I was raised with a chimpanzee,” she explains. “I tell you Fern was a chimp and already you aren’t thinking of her as my sister. But until Fern’s expulsion...she was my twin, my funhouse…


Book cover of Girls Burn Brighter

Laurie Frankel Why did I love this book?

The sisters in Girls Burn Brighter aren’t related by blood or family or tradition or history. They are sisters in ways much more profound and important and life-changing and path-determining than that. This beautiful novel traverses continents and cultures to prove blood ties and family ties have nothing on sister ties.

By Shobha Rao,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Girls Burn Brighter as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'A treat for Ferrante fans, exploring the bonds of friendship and how female ambition beats against the strictures of poverty and patriarchal societies'
Huffington Post

An electrifying debut novel - the story of the unbreakable bond between two girls driven apart, and their journeys across continents to find each other again.

Poornima and Savitha, born in poverty, have known little kindness in their lives until they meet as teenagers. When an act of devastating cruelty drives Savitha away, Poornima leaves behind everything she has ever known to find her friend.

Alternating between the girls' perspectives as they face apparently insurmountable…


Explore my book 😀

One Two Three

By Laurie Frankel,

Book cover of One Two Three

What is my book about?

From a New York Times bestselling author comes a timely, topical novel about love and family that will make you laugh and cry...and laugh again. How do you let go of the past when the past won't let go of you?

Everyone knows everyone in the tiny town of Bourne. But the Mitchell sisters are especially beloved, and not just because they’re teenage triplets. Mirabel is the smartest person anyone has ever met, and no one is fooled by her wheelchair or her Voice app into thinking otherwise. Monday is the town’s purveyor of books now that the library’s closed—tell her the book you think you want, and she’ll pull the one you actually do from the microwave or her underwear drawer. Mab’s job is hardest of all: get good grades, get into college, get out of Bourne.

Book cover of King Lear
Book cover of The Vanishing Half
Book cover of Sense and Sensibility

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Rip Current

By Sharon Ward,

Book cover of Rip Current

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Sharon Ward Author Of In Deep

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

Even as a kid, I was intrigued by the underwater world, so as an adult, I learned to scuba dive. I took to it like a fish to water, and my husband and I spent the next several years traveling to tropical islands to experience the local dive conditions whenever possible. I loved learning how every island had a different culture and a different undersea environment. Since I love tropical islands, scuba diving, mysteries, and adventure stories, these books really hit my sweet spot.

Sharon's book list on mysteries set on a tropical island

What is my book about?

Unsettled weather has caused life-threatening rip currents to sprout up seemingly at random in the usually tranquil sea around Grand Cayman. Despite posted warnings to stay out of the surf, several women lose their life when caught in the turbulent waters. Fin attempts some dangerous rescues, and nearly loses her own life in the process.

Meanwhile, Fin and the team at RIO are struggling to find more sources of funding for the Institute’s important research, and danger arises from an unexpected source while Fin and hot movie star Rafe Cummings are filming an upcoming documentary. When a young internet influencer…

Rip Current

By Sharon Ward,

What is this book about?

Unsettled weather has caused life-threatening rip currents to sprout up seemingly at random in the usually tranquil sea around Grand Cayman. Despite posted warnings to stay out of the surf, several women lose their life when caught in the turbulent waters. Fin attempts some dangerous rescues, and nearly loses her own life in the process.
Meanwhile, Fin and the team at RIO are struggling to find more sources of funding for the Institute’s important research, and danger arises from an unexpected source while Fin and hot movie star Rafe Cummings are filming an upcoming documentary.
Soon after a young internet…


5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in Washington state, inheritances, and sisters?

Washington State 82 books
Inheritances 92 books
Sisters 209 books