The weird sisters - Eleanor Brown

'See, we love each other. We just don't happen to like each other very much.'

THE WEIRD SISTERS is a trenchantly observant novel about the often warring emotions between sisters.

Unlucky in work, love and life, the Andreas sisters return to their childhood home, ostensibly to care for their ailing mother. But each sister has a secret she's unwilling to share - each has come home to lick her own wounds.

The Andreas family is an eccentric one. Books are their passion (a trip to the library usually solved everything), TV is something other families watched. Their father - a renowned, eccentric professor of Shakespeare who communicates almost exclusively in Shakespearean verse - named all three girls for great Shakespearean women - Rose (Rosalind), Bean (Bianca), and Cordy (Cordelia); as a result, the girls find that they have a lot to live up to.

With this burden, as well as others they shoulder, the Andreas sisters have a difficult time communicating with both their parents and their lovers, but especially with each other. What can the homebody and shy eldest sister, the fast-living and mysterious middle child, and the bohemian youngest sibling have in common? Why can't Rose leave her hometown for the man she loves? Why has glamorous Bean come home from New York City with her tail between her legs to the small college town she swore she'd leave as soon as she could? And why suddenly has Cordy resurfaced after years of gypsy living? Each sister has found her life nothing like she had thought it would be - and suddenly faced with their parents' frailty and their own disappointments and setbacks, their usual quick salve of a book suddenly can't solve what ails them.

To their surprise, Rose, Bean and Cordy are more similar than they ever imagined. Yet can all three escape their archetypal roots and find happiness in a normal life? As it turns out, the small town of Barnwell and their sisterly bond offer much more than they ever expected.