The Sister

March 17, 2008
Estranged sisters Ginny and Vivien Stone reunite after 50 years, releasing a flood of painful memories in Stone’s eerie, accomplished debut. Ginny and her younger sister Vivien lead an idyllic childhood in West Dorset, England, until Vivien nearly dies in an accident (the aftermath of which takes decades to unravel) when Ginny is 11 and Vivien is eight. Later, after the pair is expelled from school, a 15-year-old Vivien moves to London, and Ginny stays behind, covering up her mother Maud’s alcoholism while trying to assist her father, Clive, with his research on moths and butterflies. After Maud’s death and Clive’s subsequent dementia, Ginny lives alone in the massive house, a brilliant but increasingly reclusive scientist whose insular world is cracked open when Vivien announces her desire to return and live out her days with Ginny. Long-buried secrets float to the surface as Ginny narrates with scientific precision her life’s slow disintegration. Though the lepidopterological jargon and asides can slow things down, Adams expertly captures Ginny’s voice and the dynamics of a deeply troubled family as the book barrels toward its chilling conclusion.

Starred review from April 15, 2008
Ginny's beloved sister, Vivien, whom she hasn't seen for nearly 50 years, is finally coming home, and she's eager to tell Vivi about all the great successes in her life. Never mind that Ginny camps out in a few rooms of her gigantic, crumbling Victorian mansion, obsessively checks the time, and never talks to anyone. We watch Ginny's narrow world slowly unravel over the course of a few days as she remembers what drove Vivi away in the first place. Documentary filmmaker Adams's choice of a first-person narrative here is nothing short of brilliant because it forces the reader to see everything from Ginny's warped perspective (e.g., she freely admits to having a bad case of rheumatoid arthritis but has no idea that she is profoundly mentally ill). And Adams's lavishly gruesome descriptions of Ginny's scientific experiments on moths are enough to turn anyone off lepidopterology entirely! This chilling and disturbing novel is strongly recommended for all but the smallest public library. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 2/1/08.]Laurel Bliss, San Diego State Univ. Lib.

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2008
Two sisters reunited in their childhood home after 50 years of estrangement revisit the pain and trauma of their dysfunctional youth in this chilling contemporary gothic. When Vivien returns to the crumbling Victorian estate that her older sister, Ginny, a renowned but reclusive lepidopterologist, has never left, she is determined to unearth a host of long-buried secrets. Unfortunately, Ginny is equally determined to keep these shocking memories repressed, leading to a climactic clash of wills inevitably resulting in tragedy. Debut novelist Adams sets an appropriately sinister tone as she revamps the timeless twisted sister plot. This genuinely eerie thriller is guaranteed to appeal to the same wide readership that propelled Diane Setterfields suspenseful The Thirteenth Tale (2006) to the top of the best-seller lists.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)

July 28, 2008
This debut novel from Adams, a former documentary filmmaker, is an interesting and chilling account of two estranged sisters who recount, with varying detail, the memories of their past. Juliet Mills seems the perfect casting choice for narrator, as her rich English accent seems to saturate the words, making every one as important as the last. Mills's characters are honest and resentful, and listeners will be hard pressed not to see them as sisters in the real world. With an air for the theatrical, Mills is simply too strong a performer to ever let her audience sit back and take a break. A Knopf hardcover (Reviews, Mar. 17).