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The Weird Sisters

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On sale Feb 08, 2011 | 10 Hours and 26 Minutes | 9780307881731
“Bright, literate . . . a punchy delight.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
 
Unlucky in work, love, and life, the Andreas sisters return to their childhood home. Each has a secret she’s unwilling to share—each has come home to lick her own wounds. The Andreas family is an eccentric one. Books are their passion. Their father—a renowned professor of Shakespeare—named all three girls for great Shakespearean women—Rose (Rosalind), Bean (Bianca), and Cordy (Cordelia); as a result, the sisters find that they have a lot to live up to.
 
With this burden, the Andreas sisters have a difficult time communicating with their parents and their lovers, but especially with one another. What can the homebody and shy eldest sister, the fast-living and mysterious middle child, and the bohemian youngest sibling have in common? Why can’t Rose leave her hometown for the man she loves? Why has glamorous Bean come home from New York City? And why has Cordy suddenly resurfaced after years of gypsy living? Each sister has found her life nothing like she had thought it would be—and now, as they are faced with their parents’ frailty and their own disappointments and setbacks, their usual quick salve of a book can’t solve what ails them.
Praise for The Weird Sisters

“Delightful.”—People 

“Irresistible.”—The Boston Globe

“At once hilarious, thought-provoking, and poignant, this sparkling and devourable debut explores the roles that we play with our siblings, whether we want to or not. The Weird Sisters is a tale of the complex family ties that threaten to pull us apart, but sometimes draw us together instead.”—J. Courtney Sullivan, author of Friends and Strangers
 
“Even if you don’t have a sister, you may feel like you have one after reading this hilarious and utterly winsome novel. Eleanor Brown skillfully ties and then unties the Gordian knot of sisterhood, writing with such knowingness that when the ending came, and the three Andreas sisters--who had slunk home for a rest from themselves only to find to their horror their other two sisters there as well--emerge, I sighed the guilty sigh of pleasure and yes, of recognition.”—Sarah Blake, author of The Guest Book
 
“Get thee to a bookstore....Brown is such a clever writer, and she’s written such an endearing story about sisterly affection and the possibilities of redemption, that it’s easy to recommend The Weird Sisters. Take Polonius’s good advice and ‘read on this book.’”—The Washington Post
 
“Good sense and good humor...buoyant.”—The New York Times

“Delightful…Brown doesn’t make things easy on herself. She bestows distinct traces of prickliness, self-obsession, and irresponsibility on her women. They’re not storybook heroines but as susceptible to bad behavior as any of us. And she uses a first-person plural narrator—a collective we that speaks for every sister yet not any specific one—with a scope wide enough to view their inner turmoil and outer mistakes with wry understanding. The trick could have failed, yet it somehow doesn’t and pulls us into the heart of the family circle….That’s Brown’s great gift: She draws you in and makes you believe her weird sisters aren’t so weird after all.”—The Miami Herald
 
“Brown writes sweetly of the transition so many adults struggle to make before their parents’ eyes, from children to caretakers themselves.”—The Cleveland Plain Dealer
 
“Equal parts clever and heartfelt.”—Associated Press
 
“[A] fine debut novel...[Brown] has a crisp style and a flair for dialogue.”—The Columbus Dispatch
 
“Delightful and fascinating....A magnificent tapestry of a tale.”—The Sacramento Bee
 
“[A] charming debut novel…cleverly written from the sisters’ perspective...Though the book is named after witches in the play Macbeth, you need not be a Shakespeare scholar to fall in love with this feel-good story—or the bewitching sisters.”—Woman’s Day
 
“A page-turner from the start.”—Ladies’ Home Journal
 
“You don’t have to have a sister or be a fan of the Bard to love Brow’s bright, literate debut….The supporting cast—removed, erudite dad; ailing mom; a crew of locals; Rose’s long-suffering fiancé—is a punchy delight, but the stage clearly belongs to the sisters; Macbeth’s witches would be proud of the toil and trouble they stir up.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
 
“Lovely…This novel should appeal to Shakespeare lovers, bibliophiles, fans of novels in academic settings, and stories of sisterhood. The narration is a creative and original blending of the three ‘Weird Sisters’ as one.”—Library Journal
 
“There are no false steps in this debut novel: The humor, lyricism, and realism characterizing this lovely book will appeal to fans of good modern fiction.”—Booklist
 
“What a joy to read. What a VOICE. The Weird Sisters is family drama dissected by verbal scalpel. If with and language could protect against growing old, these bewitching sisters might never have to grow up.”—Helen Simonson, author of Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand
© Joe Henson
Eleanor Brown is the New York Times bestselling author of The Weird Sisters and The Light of Paris, and the editor of the anthology A Paris All Your Own. She lives in Colorado with her family. View titles by Eleanor Brown

About

“Bright, literate . . . a punchy delight.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
 
Unlucky in work, love, and life, the Andreas sisters return to their childhood home. Each has a secret she’s unwilling to share—each has come home to lick her own wounds. The Andreas family is an eccentric one. Books are their passion. Their father—a renowned professor of Shakespeare—named all three girls for great Shakespearean women—Rose (Rosalind), Bean (Bianca), and Cordy (Cordelia); as a result, the sisters find that they have a lot to live up to.
 
With this burden, the Andreas sisters have a difficult time communicating with their parents and their lovers, but especially with one another. What can the homebody and shy eldest sister, the fast-living and mysterious middle child, and the bohemian youngest sibling have in common? Why can’t Rose leave her hometown for the man she loves? Why has glamorous Bean come home from New York City? And why has Cordy suddenly resurfaced after years of gypsy living? Each sister has found her life nothing like she had thought it would be—and now, as they are faced with their parents’ frailty and their own disappointments and setbacks, their usual quick salve of a book can’t solve what ails them.

Reviews

Praise for The Weird Sisters

“Delightful.”—People 

“Irresistible.”—The Boston Globe

“At once hilarious, thought-provoking, and poignant, this sparkling and devourable debut explores the roles that we play with our siblings, whether we want to or not. The Weird Sisters is a tale of the complex family ties that threaten to pull us apart, but sometimes draw us together instead.”—J. Courtney Sullivan, author of Friends and Strangers
 
“Even if you don’t have a sister, you may feel like you have one after reading this hilarious and utterly winsome novel. Eleanor Brown skillfully ties and then unties the Gordian knot of sisterhood, writing with such knowingness that when the ending came, and the three Andreas sisters--who had slunk home for a rest from themselves only to find to their horror their other two sisters there as well--emerge, I sighed the guilty sigh of pleasure and yes, of recognition.”—Sarah Blake, author of The Guest Book
 
“Get thee to a bookstore....Brown is such a clever writer, and she’s written such an endearing story about sisterly affection and the possibilities of redemption, that it’s easy to recommend The Weird Sisters. Take Polonius’s good advice and ‘read on this book.’”—The Washington Post
 
“Good sense and good humor...buoyant.”—The New York Times

“Delightful…Brown doesn’t make things easy on herself. She bestows distinct traces of prickliness, self-obsession, and irresponsibility on her women. They’re not storybook heroines but as susceptible to bad behavior as any of us. And she uses a first-person plural narrator—a collective we that speaks for every sister yet not any specific one—with a scope wide enough to view their inner turmoil and outer mistakes with wry understanding. The trick could have failed, yet it somehow doesn’t and pulls us into the heart of the family circle….That’s Brown’s great gift: She draws you in and makes you believe her weird sisters aren’t so weird after all.”—The Miami Herald
 
“Brown writes sweetly of the transition so many adults struggle to make before their parents’ eyes, from children to caretakers themselves.”—The Cleveland Plain Dealer
 
“Equal parts clever and heartfelt.”—Associated Press
 
“[A] fine debut novel...[Brown] has a crisp style and a flair for dialogue.”—The Columbus Dispatch
 
“Delightful and fascinating....A magnificent tapestry of a tale.”—The Sacramento Bee
 
“[A] charming debut novel…cleverly written from the sisters’ perspective...Though the book is named after witches in the play Macbeth, you need not be a Shakespeare scholar to fall in love with this feel-good story—or the bewitching sisters.”—Woman’s Day
 
“A page-turner from the start.”—Ladies’ Home Journal
 
“You don’t have to have a sister or be a fan of the Bard to love Brow’s bright, literate debut….The supporting cast—removed, erudite dad; ailing mom; a crew of locals; Rose’s long-suffering fiancé—is a punchy delight, but the stage clearly belongs to the sisters; Macbeth’s witches would be proud of the toil and trouble they stir up.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
 
“Lovely…This novel should appeal to Shakespeare lovers, bibliophiles, fans of novels in academic settings, and stories of sisterhood. The narration is a creative and original blending of the three ‘Weird Sisters’ as one.”—Library Journal
 
“There are no false steps in this debut novel: The humor, lyricism, and realism characterizing this lovely book will appeal to fans of good modern fiction.”—Booklist
 
“What a joy to read. What a VOICE. The Weird Sisters is family drama dissected by verbal scalpel. If with and language could protect against growing old, these bewitching sisters might never have to grow up.”—Helen Simonson, author of Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand

Author

© Joe Henson
Eleanor Brown is the New York Times bestselling author of The Weird Sisters and The Light of Paris, and the editor of the anthology A Paris All Your Own. She lives in Colorado with her family. View titles by Eleanor Brown