First published 2010
Betty Weissmann stares at the ruins of her marriage after forty-eight years. Her husband has thrown her out of their elegant Manhattan apartment for his mistress. Betty retreats to a shabby beach cottage in Westport, Connecticut, with her two grown daughters in tow. Miranda, the impulsive one, works as a literary agent but keeps getting tangled in professional scandals. Annie, the steady library director, feels responsible for keeping her unpredictable mother and sister from complete disaster. The three women must rebuild their lives from scratch in their cramped seaside refuge. Cathleen Schine crafts this story as a playful tribute to Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, with Miranda as the passionate sister and Annie as the sensible one. The novel follows the women as they navigate new relationships, old wounds, and the question of what they actually want from life now that everything familiar has collapsed.
Genres: literary-fiction, domestic-fiction, contemporary, 21st-century, contemporary-romance, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, sisters
Setting: Manhattan, Westport, Connecticut
Period: 21st-century
295 pages · Hardcover · Sarah Crichton Books