A family in the throes of grief is upended when a stranger arrives at their door.
Every Sunday, sisters Lauren and Kate have lunch with their newly widowed mother. At one of these lunches, a woman by the name of Jess shows up asking to see Henry, her father. She is armed with DNA test results and claims to be their half sister.
Kate and Lauren must come to terms that their parents have a dark past. As the fallout starts, it becomes clear that they all have lives built on lies and their family is not as perfect as it appears.
The Half Sister is told from the perspective of two sisters: Kate, a celebrity gossip maven who is desperate to have a baby with her adoring husband, Matt; and Lauren, a frazzled mother of three with an abusive husband, Simon. Jones writes Kate as being paranoid and distrusting, whereas she pens Lauren as more sympathetic towards Jess.
It is human nature to make assumptions and Kate and Lauren do this to each other. We all want what we perceive other people to have without actually knowing how much of it is real. What we see externally we compare against our assumptions and perceived ideas of happiness, success, etc. Lauren and Kate really need each other but are divided by their notions of one another.
Like The Other Woman, mothers play a huge role in the story. More specifically, how mothers prioritize the health and well-being of their children over everything in their lives. Women get lost along the way.
While the book is being categorized as thriller, this is misleading. At best it is a family drama with a bit of suspense—it just doesn't quite thrill. Unfortunately, the miscategorization of this book is not the only problem. The narrative is rather repetitive and the characters lack depth. Things are touched on and not given the page time they deserve. For example, Simon was a necessary evil and contributed to the overall plot, but I wanted more from Simon and Lauren's storyline—perhaps this was a conscious choice due to the sensitive subject matter. I also wanted to learn more about Harry and felt that he wasn't fleshed out enough.
That being said, Jones is a wonderful writer. She engages her reader in short succinct chapters and redeems herself with the ending.
SANDIE JONES has worked as a freelance journalist for over twenty years, and has written for publications including the Sunday Times, Woman’s Weekly and the Daily Mail. Her debut, The Other Woman was a Reese Witherspoon x Hello Sunshine Book Club pick.
She lives in London with her husband and three children.
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