A Tale of Two Sisters

by Anna Maxted

Overview

Cassie is slender, clever, charismatic, successful. The one flaw in her perfect life may be her marriage. Her sister Lizbet is plumper, plainer, dreamier. An aspiring journalist, she's stuck writing embarrassing articles on sex for Ladz Mag. Her one achievement is her relationship with Tim, who thinks she's amusing and smart. Despite Cassie being the favored child, she and Lizbet have always been best friends. But then Lizbet gets pregnant.

Forced apart by mistakes not their own, enticed by new loves, and confronted by challenges they never asked for, Cassie and Lizbet struggle to rediscover the simple goodness of their sisterhood, even as their lives take them on a collision course of heartache and new beginnings.

A Tale of Two Sisters is Anna Maxted at her best—a highly entertaining yet deeply involving story of sisters who lose their way and need each other to find themselves again..

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780452288515
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	04/24/2007
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	5.29(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.77(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Anna Maxted lives in London with her husband, Phil, and their two sons, Oscar and Conrad. She read English at Cambridge and works as a freelance journalist who has written for Cosmopolitan and Esquire. Anna is also the author of four international bestsellers, Getting Over It, Running in Heels, Behaving Like Adults, and Being Committed.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Maxted succeeds in capturing the ways people can talk past each other and miss connections with even those they need most in the world. . . . [She has a] sure grasp of intimate relationships. (The New York Times Book Review)

Editorial Reviews

Maxted succeeds in capturing the ways people can talk past each other and miss connections with even those they need most in the world. . . . [She has a] sure grasp of intimate relationships. (The New York Times Book Review)

From the Publisher

Maxted succeeds in capturing the ways people can talk past each other and miss connections with even those they need most in the world.... [She has a] sure grasp of intimate relationships.

The New York Times Book Review

Maxted is a terrific writer with a droll comedic voice.... even her minor characters are full of life.

The Washington Post Book World

With her winning combination of honesty and warmth, Maxted has ensured herself another triumph.

Glamour

Lizbet and Cassie Montgomery, Jewish sisters in London, seem to like their lives: Lizbet, cute but schlumpy, has a mid-level job at Ladz Mag and a smart, sweet long-term, live-in boyfriend in product designer Tim; barrister Cassie, glossy, smart and hot, is married to fastidious BBC production assistant George Hershlag, which suits her fine. The two sisters have a close if constrained relationship, but when Lizbet announces she's pregnant, Cassie turns cold, even as their parents ("Vivica and Dad") are immediately thrilled. When, 30 or so pages later, Lizbet miscarries the baby in the second trimester, she plunges into despair. Cassie comes to her aid, but it may be too little, too late. Maxted (Behaving Like Adults, etc.) alternates smoothly between Lizbet's and Cassie's perspectives, giving each a distinctive voice and nailing lapsed London Jewry amusingly. When she shifts to Cassie, she handles a series of major revelations with the same emotional acuity that she gives Lizbet's devastation at the loss of her baby. As Lizbet discovers her fabulous side (but perhaps not for the better), what looks from the outside like Cassie's comeuppance is full of crushing sadness. Maxted has to do a lot of wrangling to manage the happy ending, but it offsets this chick lit novel's surprisingly harrowing center. (Aug.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Best-selling author Maxted (Being Committed) hits a home run with yet another delicious story about relationships, this time between sisters. Successful barrister Cassie is younger, prettier, and appears to be happily married, and Lizbet, who writes a sex column for a men's magazine, is chunky and, along with her boyfriend Tim, the potty king, has her head in the clouds. Despite these cavernous differences, the sisters are somehow as thick as thieves, even when Lizbet accidentally gets pregnant while Cassie, after a year of trying, finds that she can't conceive. Perhaps it is the strength of siblings struggling together to survive their blundering parents that keeps the two so close, despite the revelation of shocking secrets that threaten to tear them apart. Written in alternating voices, their stories are compelling and heartfelt while still displaying Maxted's trademark humor. If you have a sister, you'll want to share this book with her, and if you don't, you'll wish you did. Highly recommended for all public libraries.-Stacy Alesi, Palm Beach Cty. Lib. Syst., Boca Raton, FL Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Two London sisters hash out their troubles in this fourth novel from Maxted (Behaving Like Adults, 2003, etc.), champion of issue-orientated chick-lit. She's covered anorexia and date rape; now Maxted turns her attention to babies-wanting them, adopting them, losing them by miscarriage. Though Cassie and Lizbet are as close as can be, they couldn't be more different. Younger Cassie is a high-powered barrister with a sense of entitlement that would be infuriating if she didn't work so hard (for those lovely clothes, the Merc, the posh house) and charm so well. Lizbet is of more relaxed, with a messy house that she and boyfriend Tim cannot afford, an admittedly silly job at the soft-core Ladz magazine and a general desire to please, and to be pleased by everything bright and yummy. When Lizbet finds she is pregnant, she's horrified, then delighted. When the couple breaks the news at Friday Sabbath dinner, all are pleased but Cassie, who wavers between avoidance and seething rage. Unbeknownst to the family, Cassie and husband George (a loser mama's boy if ever there was one) have been trying to conceive for a year. Cassie reveals even more heartache-at 13, her parents revealed that she was adopted. The three kept it a secret, but Cassie has lately been searching for her birth mother, who recently died. Soon Cassie's jealousy becomes a moot point-Lizbet has a miscarriage and her life begins to fall apart. Lizbet discovers a taste for alcohol ("Jews don't drink, its ridiculous!" warns her icy mother), then Lizbet forces perfect Tim out of her life. And she loses her job. Cass has it only slightly better-she's pregnant, but just as she's decided to divorce George, he wants to sue her forcustody. The sister's problems with their partners, their parents and all things related to babies are trotted out with good humor, genuine emotion and, unfortunately, oversimplification. But it's the nature of this particular beast. Maxted amiably delivers what's expected.

Kirkus Reviews