The Bookstore Sisters

 Ann Hoffman does not disappoint int his new novella, The Bookstore Sisters.

Though this is a short story, it packs a big punch.  Two sisters grow up together with their father, running a small bookstore in Brinkey's Island,  Maine.  Their father is so nice that he almost has turned his bookstore into a lending library, allowing people to read the books and return them.  When he dies one sister, Isabel, decides that she is ready to leave the small town and head off on her own.  She goes and builds a life in New York and tries to forget the past. 

Sophie, the other sister stays and keeps the promise they made to their father to keep the store open. She marries a local young man and is pregnant when he dies.  She brings up her daughter on her own.  But when Sophie breaks a leg and cannot take care ofher daughter or the book store, her daughter takes matters into her own hands.

Writing to her aunt she summons her home to help out.  The two sisters must face each other and their past to work together to save the bookstore and take care of family.  They need to work through their feelings of anger and distrust to reach a close sister relationship again.

A sweet story of the love that is hidden bewtween two sisters that can be covered up but never really lost.