The Better Sister: A Novel
A Washington Post and Sun Sentinel Best Book of the Year
"One hell of a rip-roaring read."-- Seattle Review of Books
"Cunning. . . . Get ready to be led down the garden path to a conclusion so morally ambiguous a professional ethicist might have to be called in." -- Washington Post
From Alafair Burke--New York Times bestselling author of the runaway hit, The Wife-- comes another twisty tale of domestic noir. When a prominent Manhattan lawyer is murdered, two estranged sisters--one the dead man's widow, the other his ex--must set aside mistrust and old resentments ... but can they escape their past?
Keep your enemies close and your sister closer.
Though Chloe was the younger of the two Taylor sisters, she always seemed to be the one in charge. She was the honor roll student with big dreams and an even bigger work ethic. Nicky--always restless and more than a little reckless--was the opposite of her ambitious little sister. She floated from job to job and man to man, and stayed close to home in Cleveland.
For a while, it seemed that both sisters had found happiness. Chloe earned a scholarship to an Ivy League school and moved to New York City, where she landed a coveted publishing job. Nicky married promising young attorney Adam Macintosh and gave birth to a baby boy they named Ethan. The Taylor sisters became virtual strangers.
Now, more than fifteen years later, their lives are drastically different--and Chloe is married to Adam. When he's murdered by an intruder at the couple's East Hampton beach house, Chloe reluctantly allows her teenage stepson's biological mother--her estranged sister, Nicky--back into her life. But when the police begin to treat Ethan as a suspect in his father's death, the two sisters are forced to unite . . . and to confront the truth behind family secrets they have tried to bury in the past.
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Community Reviews
Nicky seemed to settle down. She married Adam Macintosh, a prosecutor, and they had a beautiful little boy, Ethan. But happiness was short-lived.
Fifteen-plus years later, Chloe is married to Adam and the two of them are raising Ethan, with Nicky pretty much completely absent from their lives.
But Adam is murdered at the couple’s swanky East Hampton beach house, and Chloe must reluctantly permit Nicky back into their lives. She comes to New York City to stay with Chloe and Ethan, and they achieve a tentative truce. But the police quickly deem Ethan a suspect, forcing the two sisters unite in order to save their son. In order to do so, they must confront and finally deal with their family history and long-buried secrets.
Alafair Burke has constructed a contemporary, timely story about a dysfunctional family with a complicated history. Nicky did not manage to remain settled for long after Ethan was born. She quickly reverted to her old patterns, and, according to Adam, that included irresponsible behavior that prompted him to seek full custody of Ethan. He went so far as move to New York City to keep Ethan away from Nicky, ostensibly to ensure Ethan's safety. And his proximity to Chloe resulted in the two of them falling in love & deciding to marry. Chloe was already devoted to her nephew, so it was a natural transition and Ethan began thinking of and referring to her as "Mom."
But over the course of the past couple of years, Ethan's behavior has been troubling and his relationship with his father deteriorating. As Chloe's success and fame magnified, so did problems in her marriage to Adam. He left his job a a prosecutor and joined a large law firm, but was never happy there.
When Adam is murdered, Chloe has no choice but to notify Nicky. After all, Chloe has no claim to Ethan -- while she may be his stepmother, she is petrified that, despite a clause in Adam's will asserting his desire that Chloe continue raising him, Nicky will regain custody. Thus, when Nicky arrives in New York, Chloe is motivated to at least develop an amiable relationship with him -- for Ethan's sake and to, hopefully, ensure that he is able to remain in her care. But when the police focus their investigative efforts on Ethan and, worse, he is charged with murdering Adam, the two women must band together in order to save the boy that both of them love.
Burke's characters are fully developed and empathetic. Nicky was always troubled and, in Chloe's estimation, blamed her problems on their parents. Their father was abusive, and their mother did not stand up for herself or her girls. But Chloe's judgmental attitude toward Nicky is not helpful when the two of them are trying to ensure that Ethan is not wrongly convicted of murder. Gradually, the sisters manage to believably forge a new relationship. This time it is founded upon a mutual goal. But in order for it to work, they will have to trust each other.
As Ethan spends long months awaiting and then standing trial, Burke deftly portrays Chloe's search for the truth about her husband's death, as well as the secrets she has been keeping about the true state of Ethan's relationship with Adam, and their marriage. Burke injects clues about the identity of Adam's killer and that individual's motivation, but also expertly keeps readers guessing until the very end of the story. In the process, readers learn exactly what happened between Nicky and Adam, and the myriad ways in which the reality of Chloe's life has been at odds with outward appearances.
Burke is a master storyteller and The Better Sister is another example of her creativity and ability to translate modern themes into a compelling mystery. She employs Chloe's first-person narrative, along with a third-person account of the detectives' investigation, and the social media posts focused on Chloe, to full effect, unwinding a fourteen-year history through Chloe's recollection. Ultimately, The Better Sister is a sometimes blistering but always moving exploration of the unique relationship of sisters, as well as motherhood, and the lengths to which a mother will go to save her child.
Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader's Copy of the book.
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