Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
From the New York Times bestselling author of Amazing Grace Adams comes a wryly resonant and deeply moving family dramedy investigating the question so many of us have asked ourselves: do my parents have a favorite?
Vivienne and Patrick Fisher have done an excellent job raising their three daughters, Alex, Nancy, and Eva. They're well-adjusted women with impressive careers, caring partners, exciting hobbies, and sweet children. So it's with great anticipation that three generations of Fishers gather at a beautiful glass house in the English countryside for a weeklong celebration of Vivienne's seventieth birthday. But when Patrick's reaction to a freak accident on the first day of the trip inadvertently reveals that he has a favorite daughter, no one is prepared for the shockwaves it sends through the family.
Decades-old unresolved sibling rivalries are suddenly unmasked. And be it newly uncovered smoking habits, ancient crushes, or private doubts about life decisions both big and small, no one's secrets are safe. Still-tender wounds are reopened amid an audience of friends, husbands, grandchildren, and even coworkers, and as the family's past is re-written, they find themselves suddenly unmoored.
In a lively, poignant examination of memory, sisterhood, and family ties, Fran Littlewood reminds us just why it is that people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
"From the New York Times bestselling author of Amazing Grace Adams comes a wryly resonant and deeply moving family dramedy investigating the question so many of us have asked ourselves: do my parents have a favorite? Vivienne and Patrick Fisher have donean excellent job raising their three daughters, Alex, Nancy, and Eva. They're well-adjusted women with impressive careers, caring partners, exciting hobbies, and sweet children. So it's with great anticipation that three generations of Fishers gather at abeautiful glass house in the English countryside for a weeklong celebration of Vivienne's seventieth birthday. But when Patrick's reaction to a freak accident on the first day of the trip inadvertently reveals that he has a favorite daughter, no one is prepared for the shockwaves it sends through the family. Decades-old unresolved sibling rivalries are suddenly unmasked. And be it newly uncovered smoking habits, ancient crushes, or private doubts about life decisions both big and small, no one's secretsare safe. Still-tender wounds are reopened amid an audience of friends, husbands, grandchildren, and even coworkers, and as the family's past is re-written, they find themselves suddenly unmoored. In a lively, poignant examination of memory, sisterhood, and family ties, Fran Littlewood reminds us just why it is that people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones"-- Provided by publisher.
Reviews provided by Syndetics
Publishers Weekly Review
Tensions flare during an English family's vacation in the country in Littlewood's emotive sophomore outing (after Amazing Grace Adams). The action begins with a falling tree, when Patrick Fisher rushes past his two older grown daughters, Alex and Nancy, to save their younger sister, Eva--who is least in danger. Alex, the eldest at 45, resents her husband, Luc, who doesn't pitch in enough with their three children. She obsessively lurks on social media for updates on her first boyfriend, Matt, whom she hasn't seen in decades, and struggles with not having lived up to her potential after being deemed the smart one by her parents. Nancy, 44, worries that her childhood reputation as the family screwup will reemerge if she tells them she's been suspended from her doctor job following a clash with a patient. Eva, a child model turned savvy businesswoman at 40, is anxious about the family discovering her recent secret marriage to Scott, whom her parents and siblings think is a gold digger. Some of the action is a bit stagey, but the sisters' bitterness, judgments, and rivalries feel all too genuine, and the story shifts effortlessly between the present and the sisters' childhoods, culminating in the revelation of a secret that explains Patrick's behavior. The author's fans will find much to love. (June)
Booklist Review
A British family gathers for matriarch Vivienne's seventieth birthday in an all-glass house in the countryside. When a tree falls, Patrick, Vivienne's husband and father to Alex, Nancy, and Eva, rushes to save only one of his daughters. Everyone is fine, but his actions set off a series of events that threaten to unravel this successful family. Alex is struggling with her surprise third baby and getting little help from her husband. Wealthy Eva, who is treating the family to this vacation, is hiding the fact that she married her annoying boyfriend, meaning his odious son is now part of the family. And Nancy is dealing with professional troubles while her beloved daughter is far away with her father. Littlewood (Amazing Grace Adams, 2023) again has her finger on the pulse of the woman on the edge, balancing an impressive cast of characters and flashbacks to the girls' upbringing, slowly revealing the sources of the familial tension. As the house fills with a mysterious odor (it's a metaphor), readers will gladly go along on this wild ride.
Kirkus Book Review
What happens to three adult sisters when they suddenly find out their father has a favorite? The Fisher sisters--Alex, Nancy, and Eva--know everything about each other. Or maybe they know nothing. When they gather with their parents, Vivienne and Patrick, and some of their kids and significant others at a posh glass-walled vacation house in the British countryside, everything breaks down. Watching the sisters sort out their lives and put them back together is at the heart of this warm, funny, insightful novel. The book kicks off with what seems to be a near-disaster: As Patrick is taking photos of the sisters outdoors, a tree behind them starts to fall. In a moment, he rushes past Alex and Nancy to pull Eva out of danger. It's shocking--like most parents, Patrick and Vivienne have always said they don't have a favorite child. But it seems he does. Worse, the family doesn't get to hash it out in private, because Eva's teenage daughter Lucy caught the rescue on video, and of course it goes viral. The near miss turns out to be a disaster after all, cracking open the pleasant surfaces of the sisters' lives. Alex, the oldest, has just had her third child at 45, and she's struggling with exhaustion, with her stale marriage, and with a secret obsession with her first love, whom she stalks on social media like a teenager. Nancy, the middle sister, is frazzled by her job as a radiologist and by sharing custody of her young daughter, Georgie, with her jerk of an ex. Eva is the youngest and by far the richest; she invented a board game for her kid that turned into a bestseller. The vacation house is her treat, but money doesn't solve everything. The narrative line is complex, moving back and forth in time and among the sisters and their mother, but Littlewood handles it skillfully. Her characters, flawed as they are, are engaging and relatable, and her sense of family dynamics captures all the old wounds, shifting hierarchies, inside jokes, and sturdy if skewed love the sisters share. Even under pressure, sisterhood is powerful in this entertaining and well-crafted novel. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
TextPublisher: New York : Henry Holt and Company, 2025Edition: First U.S. editionDescription: pages cmContent type: