"Shadow Sister" by Katherine Scott Jones
Earlier this year, I agreed to partner with Celebrate Lit to help promote new releases. While the format of this post may be a bit different, readers can expect my review (at the end of this post) to be what you typically expect when I review any book, whether a library book, free e-book, new release, or old favorite: a fair and unbiased review. For additional information about Celebrate Lit and a guest post from the author, click HERE to view Celebrate Lit's site.
About the Book
Book Title: Shadow Sister
Author: Katherine Scott Jones
Genre: Woman’s Fiction
Release date: August 28, 2018
Working on her father’s vineyard allows Sarah Lanning to bury memories of a lost love and a career that might have been. But then her fractured family receives word that her estranged sister, Jenna, is dead, leaving behind an unexpected request: that Sarah travel to Bolivia to scatter her ashes.
Accompanied by pilot Chase Maddox, Sarah embarks on an Andean journey that tests her devotion to home and exposes Jenna’s secret life. Each staggering discovery creates new mysteries—until the last, which leaves Sarah questioning everything she understood about family loyalty. At a crossroads, she must decide whether truth is worth the cost of forgiveness—and whether she can lay claim to a future of happiness without it.
Bittersweet and bold, Shadow Sister explores the mysteries of the human heart and the bond of unquenchable love.
Purchase your copy here:
Amazon: Shadow Sister
Christian Book Distributor: Shadow Sister
About the Author
Katherine Scott Jones grew up in cities on every U.S. coast and overseas as her family moved with her father’s Navy career. Seattle became home when she married her husband twenty-eight years ago. After graduating Whitworth University with a degree in communications, she established herself as a freelance writer before turning her hand to fiction. She blogs about books that celebrate beauty at www.katherinescottjones.com. Katherine and her husband have two teenage children. Shadow Sister is her second novel.
Giveaway!
The author is giving away a prize package, which includes a personalized signed copy of the book, a bookmark, a frameable print, book-lover's tea, six handcrafted greeting cards, and a set of vineyard-themed playing cards. Click HERE to enter the giveaway.
Katie's Review
When Sarah receives word that her long-absent sister has died in South America, she embarks upon a journey which begins to reveal the extent to which the sisters were estranged. Jenna's sudden death reveals additional rifts in their fractured family and shakes Sarah's perceptions and presuppositions. As Sarah seeks to make sense of the events which drove a wedge between them years earlier, she encounters her sister's friends, co-workers, and neighbors whose accounts of Jenna leave her more confused than comforted. What drove Jenna away so many years ago? Why was Jenna planning to come home before her death? Why did she so completely exclude Sarah from the new life she had been building in Bolivia? And do the shadows of the past mean danger for Sarah today?
Shadow Sister takes readers on a journey from Washington state's wine country to the jagged mountain roads and remote villages of Bolivia. It explores fractured family dynamics and how brokenness often drives us away from those whom we love.
Shadow Sister is told from both Sarah and Jenna's perspective, and the narrative bounces between these two perspectives and both past and present time frames. The author chose to use a present tense narrative, which I found highly distracting at the beginning of the novel. For the first several chapters, I felt disoriented and couldn't get into the story. The bouncing between time frames, perspectives, and locations while consistently using present tense was problematic. Once I settled into the story, however, I appreciated the author's development of the characters and setting.
Ms. Scott Jones develops a complex web of family dynamics, many of which are shrouded in shadow. Her characters are flawed - possibly to a greater extent than some readers would prefer for Christian fiction. Their choices and the consequences of those choices are well within the range of plausibility, though, and the author's exploration of the fissures which those choices would cause within a family had a ring of authenticity. The author's narrative style (again, the bouncing between perspectives and time frames) led to some frustration, though, since it was evident from the beginning that certain elements of the story were intentionally obscured. The allusion to these obscured elements was too overt, and became frustrating.
While I enjoyed Shadow Sister, I didn't love it. I appreciated the author's development of flawed characters whose brokenness led them toward the healing only possible through Jesus' example of love and forgiveness. I appreciated the author's portrayal of characters - including the missionaries! - as human beings rather than idealized saints. I appreciated her exploration of difficult dynamics within families and the impact of traumatic events upon relationships. The story ticked a lot of boxes in women's fiction from a head-on perspective (difficult family dynamics and a bit of mystery with a side of romance, international travel, and a vineyard), but the delivery fell a bit flat for me because of the stilted narrative. I would recommend this book with reservation. Reader beware - the narrative style may distract you, and the characters aren't sinless saints. The entire premise of the story is based on sorrow and fractured family dynamics. That said, Shadow Sister was a well-developed redemptive tale and I liked it.
I received an Advance Reader Copy of this book from the author through Celebrate Lit. All opinions contained in this review are my own.