As seen on Goodreads:

The New York Times bestselling author of Falling presents a warm, wise, and wonderfully vivid novel about a mother who asks her three estranged daughters to come home to help her end her life.

Ronni Sunshine left London for Hollywood to become a beautiful, charismatic star of the silver screen. But at home, she was a narcissistic, disinterested mother who alienated her three daughters.

As soon as possible, tomboy Nell fled her mother’s overbearing presence to work on a farm and find her own way in the world as a single mother. The target of her mother s criticism, Meredith never felt good enough, thin enough, pretty enough. Her life took her to London and into the arms of a man whom she may not even love. And Lizzy, the youngest, more like Ronni than any of them, seemed to have it easy, using her drive and ambition to build a culinary career to rival her mother’s fame, while her marriage crumbled around her.

But now the Sunshine Girls are together again, called home by Ronni, who has learned that she has a serious disease and needs her daughters to fulfill her final wishes. And though Nell, Meredith, and Lizzy are all going through crises of their own, their mother s illness draws them together to confront old jealousies and secret fears and they discover that blood might be thicker than water after all.

My Comments:

So much to enjoy in Jane Green’s latest novel, The Sunshine Sisters!  Sisters Nell, Meredith, and Lizzy, have damaged relationships with each other and their actress mother Ronni, and when Ronni asks them all to come see her at once, they are not enthusiastic.  Ronni is ill and wants to make amends before she dies.  She hopes to be forgiven for her less than perfect mothering and to bring her girls together so they can get reacquainted and become a support for each other.

Jane’s characters are complex and well developed; we learn of their insecurities, coping mechanisms and emotions, and we see how it manifests in their words and behaviors.  Each daughter had to overcome obstacles in her life and I was rooting for all of them every step of the way.  In addition to the realistically flawed, likable characters, I have to make mention of the setting.  As a Westport native, it was such a pleasure for me to see my town through the eyes of the Sunshine sisters, nostalgic, accurate and oh so much fun!

Always pleasurable to read a Jane Green novel, and for me, this one was especially wonderful.  A beautiful story of a family mending fences, reevaluating priorities, repairing relationships and creating new and better ones.  The wonderful Westport, Connecticut setting with mentions of all the hot spots read like a cherished home movie for me, and shedding some tears like I did always deserves a thumbs up!

The Sunshine Sisters will be available June 6th!  Order a copy HERE for your beach bag!

Jane Green is the author of eighteen novels, of which seventeen are New York Times Bestsellers, including her latest, Falling Previous novels have included The Beach House, Second Chance, Jemima J, and Tempting Fate.  Her cookbook, Good Taste, debuted on October 4th.

She is published in over 25 languages, and has over ten million books in print worldwide. She joined the ABC News team to write their first enhanced digital book— about the history of Royal marriages, then joined ABC News as a live correspondent covering Prince William’s wedding to Kate Middleton.  A former journalist in the UK, she has had her own radio show on BBC Radio London, and is a regular contributor on radio and TV, including as well as regularly appearing on television shows including Good Morning America, The Martha Stewart show, and The Today Show.

Together with writing books and blogs, she contributes to various publications, both online and print, including anthologies and novellas, and features for The Huffington Post, The Sunday Times, Cosmopolitan and Self. She has taught at writers conferences, and does regular keynote speaking, and has a weekly column in The Lady magazine, England’s longest running weekly magazine.

A graduate of the French Culinary Institute in New York, Green filled two of her books, Saving Grace and Promises to Keep, with recipes culled from her own collection. She says she only cooks food that is “incredibly easy, but has to look as if you have slaved over a hot stove for hours.” This is because she has five children, and has realised that “when you have five children, nobody ever invites you anywhere.”

She lives in Westport, Connecticut with her husband and their blended family. When she is not writing, cooking, gardening, filling her house with friends and herding chickens, she is usually thanking the Lord for caffeine-filled energy drinks. A cancer survivor – she has overcome Malignant Melanoma, she also lives with Chronic Lyme Disease, and believes gratitude and focusing on the good in life is the secret to happiness.