Review: The Sisters Hemingway, by Annie England Noblin

About the book, The Sisters Hemingway

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks (February 12, 2019)

For fans of Susan Mallery, Kristan Higgins, or Susan Wiggs, this is a novel for anyone who loves stories about sisters, dogs, and family secrets.

The Sisters Hemingway: they couldn’t be more different…or more alike.

The Hemingway Sisters of Cold River, Missouri are local legends. Raised by a mother obsessed with Ernest Hemingway, they were named after the author’s four wives—Hadley, Pfeiffer, Martha, and Mary. The sisters couldn’t be more different—or more alike. Now they’re back in town, reunited to repair their fractured relationships.

Hadley is the poised, polished wife of a senator.

Pfeiffer is a successful New York book editor.

Martha has skyrocketed to Nashville stardom.

They each have a secret—a marriage on the rocks, a job lost, a stint in rehab…and they haven’t been together in years.

Together, they must stay in their childhood home, faced with a puzzle that may affect all their futures. As they learn the truth of what happened to their mother—and their youngest sister, Mary—they rekindle the bonds they had as children, bonds that have long seemed broken. With the help of neighbors, friends, love interests old and new—and one endearing and determined Basset Hound—the Sisters Hemingway learn that he happiness that has appeared so elusive may be right here at home, waiting to be claimed.

Buy, read, and discuss The Sisters Hemingway:

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About the author, Annie England Noblin

Annie England Noblin lives with her son, husband, and three dogs in the Missouri Ozarks. She graduated with an M.A. in creative writing from Missouri State University and currently teaches English and communications for Arkansas State University in Mountain Home, Arkansas. She spends her free time playing make-believe, feeding stray cats, and working with animal shelters across the country to save homeless dogs.

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My Thoughts

This book came into my life when I really needed a cozy, gentle novel about family, and that’s what I got. At the same time, though, it’s also an honest look at family, at the secrets we keep from the people we love, and the truths that only those who love us most ever know, often without saying.

With The Sisters Hemingway, author Noblin gives us three separate stories in one novel, though all three eventually converge with a fourth to form a family portrait of courage and heartbreak, and unspoken selflessness.

The actual sisters of the story are all fully formed adults when we meet them, approaching middle age with less stability than they probably wished to have. Martha, the music star, has ended a relationship with someone who diminished her talents and self-worth. Pfeiffer made a stupid mistake that cost her a thriving career, and Hadley is a dutiful wife to a politician. Their fourth sister dies in the prologue – we never know what she would have been as an adult – but she’s still very present in the novel.

What I really loved about this book was the way Noblin showed us that just because you’re an adult, or even middle-aged doesn’t mean you have to be finished or perfect or even know exactly what you want. Rather, we are capable of growth and and change, and finding new love at any age, and for me, someone who is fast approaching the magic age of fifty, that’s something I don’t often see in contemporary fiction, except in mysteries and thrillers.

Noblin’s writing voice is fresh and accessible, her plot is well-paced, and her characters are vividly drawn. I recommend this book highly.

Goes well with grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches and homemade chili, with glasses of cold sweet tea.