Sisters & Husbands

Sisters & Husbands is the long-awaited sequel to Connie Briscoe's first novel, Sister's & Lovers, which was published more than 10 years ago. This story about Evelyn, Charmaine, and Beverly three very close sisters, focuses on the month leading up to Beverly's wedding.

In her late 30s, this is Beverly's third engagement, so everyone is watching for signs of cold feet. But Beverly is not concerned. Julian is the most wonderful man she has ever been with, considerate, caring, sexy and with a great career that he loves. However, she starts to question the entire institution of marriage and lifetime monogamy when cracks begin to show in both of sisters' marriages, especially the more than 20 year union of Evelyn and her seemingly fabulous husband Kevin. The story is filled with situations of life in the twenty-first century, balancing career and family, blending families with children from previous relationships, sharing custody, being an empty-nester, possible physical abuse, excessive materialism, and good old fashioned family gatherings with traditional food and games. It was interesting to see how three women, raised in the same home with the same basic values would handle situations differently and have such different reactions and points of view. No matter what happens however, they support each other and will fight for each other, each in her own way, aggressively by Charmaine, Evelyn the family counselor seeing both points of view, and Beverly, having never been married, looking at many things through rose-colored glasses, although standing by her sisters and doing what she can in a much calmer tone than Charmaine. Of course I'm not going to say what happens with each of the sisters' marriages, but I will tell you that it's interesting to see the choices they make and why.
Sisters & Husbandsis a really great read, and I wish I had read Sisters & Lovers first to see the changes 10 years have made in the sisters and their points of view.