I got this good-condition hardcover at a local Salvation Army thrift shop. I'm not usually a fan of the Oprah Book Club selections, which seem to me to tend towards abusive relationships and wrenching tragedies, but I actually found myself drawn into this one - in part because it inverts the pattern (at least a bit), hinting at dark secrets from the get-go and eventually revealing secrets that are much less dark than suspected.

Not that this lessens the tragedies: we have devoted sisters who are torn apart by circumstance, and once reunited are separated again by untimely death; we have a motherless child with a distant, troubled father who's recovering slowly from his own physical and emotional wounds; and, years down the line, there is the threat to young lovers posed by those long-buried secrets.

But for me, the darkest aspect of the story was the near-pathological attachment of Amanda, first to her sister and later to her niece Ruth, thinking of them as hers - not just to protect but to cling to despite their own wishes. Amanda suffers for this, and is even institutionalized at one point, but by the story's end it doesn't seem that the central characters have learned how to be independent. Perhaps this was intended as a heart-warming choice on Ruth's part, but I couldn't see it that way... and, given the title of the book, the author might not either.

Interesting story, anyway, with alternate character viewpoints and with shifts in time, from flashbacks to memories recalled (accurately or not), building the complete picture of choices made and calamities resulting.

I left this book in the Little Free Library at around 4; hope the finder enjoys it!

*** Released as part of the 2016 E-less release challenge. ***