The Geometry of Sisters [Hardcover]

Luanne Rice (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 14, 2009

What is one sister without the other? Is it even possible to imagine?

New York Times bestselling author Luanne Rice explores the complex emotional equations of love and loyalty that hold together three pairs of remarkable sisters. Here in the halls of Newport Academy, a unique private school that has attracted generations of rebels, outcasts, and visionaries, an unforgettable lesson in the eternal truths of sisterhood is about to begin….

After years away, Maura Shaw has returned to Newport, Rhode Island, to teach English at the academy. Behind her lies her life as the perfect Midwestern wife and mother, a life that seemed on the surface to be all she had ever wished for. That illusion vanished in a storm off Mackinac Island in the wake of an accident that engulfed Maura’s husband and her older daughter, Carrie. Now, with her son and younger daughter, she hopes to find a new beginning.

Newport has never failed to infuse Maura with a sense of mystery and hope. But for fourteen-year-old Beck, the move is a painful upheaval from everything she has ever loved—especially her sister, Carrie. Ever since her sister disappeared, Beck has retreated into the world of mathematics, where principles are permanent, unlike so many other things in life. Without Carrie, Beck has lost half of herself—the half that would have fit in at the elite private school she and her brother, Travis, will now attend. The half that made things right. Still, Beck clings to the hope that her sister will return to them.

Beck isn’t alone in her struggle to adjust. At sixteen, Travis is juggling a long-distance first love and an attraction to an expensive-looking girl with a wicked sparkle in her eye. And for Maura, ghosts linger here—an unresolved breach with her own beloved sister and a long-ago secret that may now have the power to set her free….

Set against the breathtaking beauty of the New England coast at its most dramatic, populated by a cast of indelible characters, The Geometry of Sisters is Luanne Rice at her most compelling, a dazzling world to which readers will want to return again and again.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Amazon Exclusive: Luanne Rice on The Geometry of Sisters

Luanne Rice is a New York Times bestselling author whose moving novels of love and family have inspired the devotion of readers everywhere. Rice began her writing career. She is the author of twenty-six novels, most recently Last Kiss, Light of the Moon, What Matters Most, The Edge of Winter, Sandcastles, and Summer of Roses. Rice lives in New York City and Old Lyme, Connecticut. See more of her books in the Luanne Rice Author Store.

I grew up in a triangle of sisters, the oldest of three girls. Invisible lines stretched between us, never quite equidistant. Within our tight threesome, one always felt a little left out. We told each other everything, except the occasional deep, dark secret. And when one learned the other two had known, it was a knife in the heart.

The Geometry Of Sisters tells of three sets of sisters, the amazing and treacherous ways they love and protect each other. It’s set in a New England prep school, on a cliff in Newport, Rhode Island. Newport, because my sisters and I lived there the year after our father died, and prep school because...

My youngest sister was (and is) brilliant and the most sensitive girl on earth. My mother taught at our junior high. It was a rough school, and some kids gave us a hard time for being a teacher’s daughters. My middle sister and I survived, but I decided our youngest sister needed a different environment. My father was sick, my mother preoccupied with his illness, so I felt it was up to me.

I researched private schools at our downtown library, got lost in catalogues promising fine academics, graceful architecture, rolling hills, tradition passed down from class to class, a sense of safety and enclosure. I thought somehow, in a school like that, my sister would be protected from life’s pain and dangers.

She was accepted to Miss Porter’s School with a full scholarship. She spent four years there, a test for our triangle. My middle sister and I would drive her to school, take her to the Farm Shop for lunch, find ways to keep us all close.

When she went to Deerfield for “Winterim,” a month-long winter study opportunity, she asked my middle sister up for the weekend and a dance. This was one of my left-out times. I could have invited myself along, but such is the delicate sensibility of sisterhood--it’s the asking that counts. Equally, there have been occasions I’ve excluded one sister or the other, put her in the middle, known that she felt hurt; sisters feel the shards of each other’s pain.

Life has taught me that the visible connection among sisters is no more intense and permanent than the unseen one. Welcome to the geometry of families. Are you part of a triangle, a straight line, a parallelogram, a circle? Are you a single point? Family members exist in relation to each other, not in bloodless planes, angles and lines, but in love, joy, hurt, and sorrow.

My father died in April the year my sister graduated from Miss Porter’s. Death made us sad and wild. The three of us moved to Newport--we left home, but stayed together. My sisters worked at a boatyard; I wrote fiction. We spent evenings on Thames Street and at Bannister’s Wharf. I met a boy with deep-sea eyes. He lived in his family’s warehouse on a cobblestone alley; he painted boats. We took walks.

My sisters and I were far from the protected enclosure of a New England boarding school, but how safe had it been, anyway? My father had died while she was a student there. Nothing could bring him back, life would soon take the three of us in different directions, and all those racing yachts and Australian sailors were an obstacle course of sorts.

But that summer I had a boat-painting friend, and my sisters and I lived under the same roof, and the first seeds of the story that would become The Geometry Of Sisters were planted. --Luanne Rice

(Photo © Gasper Tringale)

From Publishers Weekly

The prolific Rice contemplates class, family and math in this disappointing outing. After her husband dies and her eldest daughter, Carrie, runs away, Maggie Shaw moves her remaining brood—level-headed Travis and troubled Beck—from Ohio to Newport, R.I., where she will teach English at the prestigious Newport Academy, where the kids also enroll. Apathetic Beck strikes up an easy friendship with Lucy, who hopes her mathematical prowess will somehow help her bring back her own dead father. Rice's simple writing style suits the kids well, but doesn't work as well with Maggie, who has mixed feelings about reconnecting with her estranged sister. All the while, Maggie continues to search for the missing Carrie, who eventually steps onto the page to deliver her side of the story. Beck warms up as the narrative progresses, but the plot becomes increasingly and pointlessly convoluted, lending a soap opera feel to an initially promising setup. It starts strong, but falters and never recovers. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Bantam; First Edition edition (April 14, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553805134
• ISBN-13: 978-0553805130
• Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 1.1 x 9.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #482,857 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

LUANNE RICE is the New York Times bestselling author of twenty-nine novels, most recently The Silver Boat. Her books, including Cloud Nine and Dream Country, often center on love, family, nature and the sea, and have been translated into twenty-four languages. A number of Rice's novels have been adapted for television, including Crazy in Love for TNT, Blue Moon for CBS, the Hallmark Hall of Fame presentations of Follow the Stars Home and Silver Bells, and Beach Girls as a summer drama series for Lifetime Television. She has contributed a theatrical piece to the new off Broadway play Motherhood Out Loud. Rice loves nature and frequently writes about it. Born in New Britain, Connecticut, Rice divides her time between New York City and Old Lyme, Connecticut, in the house where she spent all her childhood summers.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Almost makes me want to look at my son's geometry book!, April 18, 2009

By 

M. Smiley "book lover" (Houston, TX USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Geometry of Sisters: A Novel (Newport, Rhode Island) (Kindle Edition)

Who knew that math would make a good idea for a great read! Combine the math with the close relationships of two generations of sisters and Luanne Rice rates an A plus in my book! As we follow grieving mom Maura Shaw moving her two children Beck and Travis from Ohio to Newport, RI, we learn more about the death of her husband and what caused her oldest daughter Carrie to run away. The sister plot thickens as there is also a deep rift between Maura and her own sister Katherine, some sister ghosts at the academy, and two other rich sisters at the academy. Although I've never had a love for math, this book made me appreciate the different angles, circles, triangles that love and life can take! I also immediately called my sister after finishing "The Geometry of Sisters" - time for bonding and a girl's weekend! Luanne Rice doesn't disappoint again - I love her books!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Lost in the math, June 3, 2009

By 

L. Phipps "book lover" (CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Geometry of Sisters (Hardcover)

Although Ms. Rice can write and makes her books very compelling this one was flat. I never felt I knew any of the characters well and the ending was rushed just ready to be over. None of the characters you really knew or cared about. It is an easy read and takes very little time to get through but this is not her best work. I thought the math part of the story was just boring.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Utterly awful!, August 30, 2010

By 

Mary Wittler (Marquette, MI) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Geometry of Sisters: A Novel (Mass Market Paperback)

As a fan of Beach Girls, I couldn't wait to read this book, but it didn't take long to realize that this book was poorly conceived and poorly written. If Luann Rice is to be judged based on this book, I can honestly say that I will never pick up another of her books.

When Ally comes to visit Travis and they go out to the club. Ally is described as wearing a blue strapless dress. A mere seven pages later, Ally and Travis leave the club and they are making out in the car, when somehow Travis manages to "slip her straps off of her shoulders". Seriously??? WHAT straps?

From leaves that call out Carrie's name to her sister, to a mother who casually misplaces a notebook that contains clues to the whereabouts of her missing daughter, to a young mother who cannot wait another minute to venture out on foot with her baby even though there is a serious snow storm in progress. Plausablity is stretched beyond any reasonble limit.

Unrealistic plot lines, ridiculous characters, and flawed writing make this one of the worst books that I have ever read...and I read a lot of books. I strongly suggest that Ms. Rice take more time to iron out obvious defects in storyline, and character development and write fewer books.