An Amazon Charts, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestseller.
From the author of The Art of Inheriting Secrets comes an emotional new tale of two sisters, an ocean of lies, and a search for the truth.
Her sister has been dead for fifteen years when she sees her on the TV news… years ago on a train during a terrorist attack. Gone forever. It’s what her sister, Kit, an ER doctor in Santa Cruz, has always believed. Yet all it takes is a few heart-wrenching seconds to upend Kit’s world. Live coverage of a club fire in Auckland has captured the image of a woman stumbling through the smoke and debris. Her resemblance to Josie is unbelievable. And unmistakable. With it comes a flood of emotions—grief, loss, and anger—that Kit finally has a chance to put to rest: by finding the sister who’s been living a lie.
After arriving in New Zealand, Kit begins her journey with the memories of the past: of days spent on the beach with Josie. Of a lost teenage boy who’d become part of their family. And of a trauma that has haunted Kit and Josie their entire lives.
Now, if two sisters are to reunite, it can only be by unearthing long-buried secrets and facing a devastating truth that has kept them apart far too long. To regain their relationship, they may have to lose everything.
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Initially reading this I was hooked and enjoyed it. I had already figured out what happened to Josie when she was young, as it was extremely obvious, however that didn’t take away from the first half of the book. The second half fell flat and I just wanted to get through it.
What bothered me was how slow it got in some spots. Josie as a character was selfish and her motives for lying to her husband and kids and for putting her sister and mom through that type of grief was quite unbelievable.
I am not in any way discounting what happened to her but I can’t see someone faking their death for the reasons she says she did. I had a hard time feeling any sympathy for her throughout and that took away from the overall story.
I enjoyed the lush descriptions of the sea and of New Zealand, one of the settings. Sisters separated by the consequences of extremely poor parenting. One sister fakes her death for a chance to begin again by burying her past; the other sister cuts herself off from any relationships as a form of self protection…until she see her older sister on a news clip a decade and a half after her “death”. The story line moves freely from past to present and has two subplots, one of the mom and one a romantic love story. Good read.
Just finished this book and I LOVED IT!!! Totally captured me and I couldn’t put it down. I read a lot of books but this one really left an impression. SO enjoyed it!
O’Neal delivers a heartbreaking and lovely novel with beautiful characters. I highly recommend this book to fans of the women’s fiction genre.
A poetic and heart-rending journey from California to New Zealand. This book will tug on your heart-strings… hard. Beautifully written, evocative, and poignant, I shed plenty of tears over this one. If you love to read women’s fiction involving sisters, romance, and mysteries, which I do, you’ll love this book.
Wow! After reading Barbara’s book about writing romance, I wanted to read some of her novels. I saw the crazy number of reviews and started here. I love this book so much! So much heartache interwoven with a good dose of intrigue – both in the past and the present. This was so very good, I will definitely be reading more of Barbara’s books.
This is a beautiful tragic story of sibling love.
A gem! The tone of this was different than the last couple Barbara O’Neal books I read (and also enjoyed). I was drawn in from the start and hardly stopped reading. Kit and Josie’s relationship was very honest and engaging, and I liked all the characters. Now, to schedule a trip to the ocean…
One of the best books I have read in a long time. I loved the story of the two sisters, with and ending I didn’t expect.
Description overload brings the story down a notch, but a good book overall.
I have mixed feelings about this book because there are so many strong similarities with my first novel, Going Over the Falls (a surf-obsessed narrator who is an ER doctor and who is searching for a missing family member, travel, and finding love along the way. Also my father is in the restaurant business, just like the narrator’s…it’s quite uncanny, all the ties that connect me, this book, and her characters).
That should mean that I loved it. And there are so many parts of this book that I did love. Plus the writing was fluid, descriptive, and offered the emotional depth so often lacking in fiction these days.
But I was often sad while reading this story. The characters carry so much pain. I often lost hope. It almost plays out like a mystery, and that’s what kept me going. But there’s still terrible loss in this book, and one flaw–though readers likely won’t see it–is how easily Kit is “fixed” in the end and how quickly Mar’s husband forgives her. It was just a little too easy for them after such a long road of keeping their emotions locked away.
I love intricate family dramas spiked with a little bit of romance, and if that’s your thing you will love this story. Keep the tissues handy and plenty of compassion for yourself and these beautiful characters.
Too much of “chic lit” romance for my tastes.
The first powerful sentence promises an amazing story. O’Neal delivers. Quirky, struggling characters reveal their connections, their triumphs and tragedies in teasing snippets that drive the reader headlong through the pages for answers. The bonds that shape lives in one Santa Cruz family thread through their lives no matter where they go. The bond between sisters continues to tug on them regardless of time and distance.
Breathtaking in scope and depth, the emotionally complex story of sisters Kit and Josie resonates with truth and pain and longing.
4.5 stars for story. 4.5 stars for narration. I honestly had trouble stopping myself from listening to it straight through. It was wonderfully written and while it had a good romance, it was mainly about two sisters separated and now reunited after 15 years of thinking one was dead. It’s told from alternating points of view and I appreciated that so you can better understand what each sister went through or is going through. I also really enjoy books that go back in time to tell the story-there again alternating between then and now. The book really shows how the past can cause problems in the future. I also really enjoyed the setting of New Zealand.
What kept it from being a full 5 stars for me was mainly due to the reasons behind the 15 years absence. I just expected it to be more major than it ultimately was. The other thing? I wanted the epilogue to flesh out the ending more. I still have questions. A sequel could really be a possibility. For me anyway.
The narrators were both good and I enjoyed having two distinct voices for the sisters. A male Spanish accent was even done very well.
Highly recommended to adult readers.
Just the right blend of mystery and romance. Compelling plot and relatable characters.
Alternating between current time and the past, one sister steps away from her own life to search for another who was lost to the family years before. Along the way she will discover the truth about their past and realize that all may not have been as it seemed to her at the time. Sometimes family is worth fighting through the muck to find.
Totally engrossing. Wonderful characters, wonderful story. Loved every minute!!
It took me so much time to get into the story, I really didn’t know where it was taking me. I didn’t know what the story was about and until 30% I actually started to get the feeling of the characters and where the story was headed.
Two sisters that were separated by life circumstances, their life was never calm and pleasant, their parents usually had their head around something less important but always making them aside not really knowing what was happening with them, with their lives.. until life happens and things started to collapse all around them.
Josie is lost and Kit is looking to somehow finally fix up her life and herself but nothing prepared her and her mom for what they saw on the news, making them aware that maybe Josie is not death, that maybe she is around somewhere, trying to start a life far away from the memories and the bad parenting she had..
This story is a lot about second chances and forgives and forget.. sometimes our parents really don’t know how much harm they’re doing to us by simply not being present and this is the main issue with Josie and Kit two parents completely absorbed into one another and never had any time of clue of their daughter’s sadness and burdens.
When we believed in mermaids wasn’t easy to read at some part I really got so angry, because the two parents were living a life that wasn’t right for their two daughters. I really got angry that nobody ever fought for Josie not even after what she suffered, not even in the end she got revenge or justice after what she went through? not even Josie husband he cares more about what he felt than what Josie went through. she really deserved a better ending and more empathy, something I never felt the other characters felt for her.
This is a very real story or let’s say not so fictional, everything really felt so in point, and the situations were so accurate.
I enjoy this book more and more as I was approaching the end.. I think I started to enjoy it more after 35 or even 40% my emotions were all over the place, I felt the anger, the sadness all those moments the main characters were going through.
Definitely I love Kit she was an amazing heroine way stronger than any other character in this story.
Overall was a good story and great characters, the only thing I really would have loved as if the author really gave Josie a better scenario to finally get rid of all her past, I never felt a cathartic moment for her, I felt like she told her story but never really got rid of that sadness.
Great “what-if” story of loss and reconnection, how a happy family disintegrated and came back together, involving the beach and exotic locations. Loved the muse in it.
OK so I received a copy of this book to read and review. OH MY it was wonderful. What would you do if after 15 years of thinking your sister was dead you see her on a newscast half a world away. Your mother is saying go find her, you are not sure she really exists, and your carrier is very important. And who is Javier and what does his future hold as far as Kit is concerned….found this story really fascinating and so like sisters can be.