Her Mother's Daughter

Title: Her Mother’s Daughter

Author: Lesley Crewe

Date Finished: September 26, 2010

Personal Book Count: 45 out of 100

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Genre/ Subject: Canadian Fiction

First Line: Bay Gillis shoveled compost out of her ancient wheelbarrow and scattered it between the rows of vegetables in the garden at the back of the house.

Why did I pick this book?: received as a review copy from Librarything.com

Summary and Review: from the back of the book-

“Sisters Bay and Tansy are complete opposites. Widowed mother Bay has never lived anywhere but Louisbourg; restless Tansy left the town as a teenager and stayed away for years.
And now, Tansy is home. Home, and unwittingly falling in love with her sister’s almost-boyfriend. Home, and befriending Ashley when all Bay can do is fight with her teenaged daughter. Home, and desperately hiding the real reason she fled all those years ago.
When crisis hits the family, the sisters draw closer. But the closer they are, the more explosive their relationship, and soon their troubled history threatens to shatter what’s left of their family forever.”

I find that many books that try and introduce many characters in the first few pages, just confuse me, right off the bat. This was not the case with this book. They were explained (and described) so well, that I followed along easily from the beginning. It struck me from the start that the writing was very good, with very different voices for the characters. Tansy was very New York and sophisticated, while Bay had stayed in Louisbourg, and reflected that. I did find it a little predictable in places, and even somewhat cliché. Hard working good girl gets the short end of the stick and her bad girl party sister gets all the good luck. At first I really liked the character of Dermot. Then he started to bug me. Was he being slotted as the good boy or bad boy? Then I just decided he was selfish. He couldn’t decide which sister he wanted, so he was just going to sell his home and business and run away? Come on… All in all I thought the author was brilliant, and I was really touched by her writing. I spent a lot of time thinking about the story when I wasn’t reading it. I did feel maybe the ending was rushed for my taste, and a little too neatly wrapped up. I really enjoyed this book, and honestly assumed that it would stick with me for a long time. I was quiet surprise when I sat down to write this review, and discovered it hadn’t. This wasn’t what I think of as typical Canadian fiction. (Maybe that is why I enjoyed it so much, it wasn’t trying to hard to be ‘literature’.) I will be looking for more from this author in the future.

Agree? Disagree? Recommendations? Any insights, suggestions, or comments on the book or format, or blog at all are most welcome. If you have read this and/ or review it yourself, please let me know. Can you think of any books like this? Give me a recommendation! =D