Luanne Rice talks about THE GEOMETRY OF SISTERS

The Geometry of Sisters ... the phrase originated in an earlier novel of mine. Nita Taublib circled the phrase in the manuscript of Firefly Beach. It seemed to sum up the facts, shapes, area, mathematics, poetics, relative positions of any given sisterhood. There have been many sisters who've worked closely on my books. When I turned in this manuscript, the old phrase came back to us, and the title became THE GEOMETRY OF SISTERS.

Sisters come from the closest place. We sleep under the same roof, share dreams and nightmares. We hold hands on the way home from school. We turn inside out when one of us cries. When we keep our first secret, chances are it's from our sister, and that breaks our hearts.

THE GEOMETRY OF SISTERS takes place in Newport, Rhode Island, a very important site for my family. Our family has spent a lot of time there. Mim (my grandmother) and her five sisters rode the Mount Hope ferry down Narragansett Bay every Friday afternoon. They'd stay in a boarding house and play on the beach and boardwalk all weekend. She met her husband there. Years later, her granddaughters made places for ourselves in Newport. Lives of love, and closeness, and beaches, and stories.

Sisters--even, or maybe especially--the closest sisters--sometimes break apart. They have terrible fights or misunderstandings. No one--no one in this world--can hurt you like your sister. But if that happens, I invite you to consider the eternal triangle. I have, and it has brought me, and the characters in THE GEOMETRY OF SISTERS, solace. Sending love to all my readers, especially sisters ...

Love,