After receiving a call about her mother's sudden death, Margaret Lansing is left with mixed feelings. Margaret, a PhD working in Seattle at a pharmaceuticals lab, is worried about the effect this will have on her estranged sisters, Rose and Quincy. Margaret is the single and serious older sister, while Rose is married and a home economics teacher in Sacramento. Baby sister Quincy, the gorgeous one, lives free and loose in Las Vegas. All sisters bare a phobia created by their mother. Their father deserted them as very small children and four years have passed since their last disastrous visit with their mother.

Meeting together is cumbersome and awkward for the sisters, but they set about to make arrangements for their mother's funeral. Each woman has her own baggage and guilt to shoulder with memories of their unloving mother. As they work together to sort through her household goods and personal items, their outlooks change and they are drawn together as true sisters. Each reveals their fears and learns to share in an effort to overcome individual phobias. Meeting with the attorney reveals a pleasant surprise for the sisters. This helps them realize that their mother did not hate them and renews their faith and confidence, as well as their love, for each other.

This is my first book by Ann Roth, but it will not be my last. She's written a touching, beautiful story capturing the unique love shared by sisters. The sisters learn to share their burdens, fears and dreams with each other in a very realistic tale of overcoming a less than perfect childhood. The rejection felt as a child growing up, and remembered as an adult, is not always as it truly was experienced.

Book Summary

In some families, there is pain and loss...

When sisters Margaret, Rose, and Quincy Lansing receive the tragic news that a car accident has claimed the life of their mother, they must return to their childhood home-and to one another's company. Although they are shocked and heartbroken, none of the Lansing sisters is eager to be back. For the painful memories they thought they'd left behind have suddenly resurfaced...

But there is also an unbreakable bond of love.

The Lansings were never a close or loving family. And each sibling had long ago found her own means of escape-Margaret into her lab work, Rose into her "perfect" marriage, Quincy into her acts of rebellion. So when crisis forces them together again, they discover that they know as little about one another as they did about their mother. And in unraveling her secrets, they find not only revelation, but also strength, hope, sisterhood, and a chance for love..