From the New York Times Bestselling Author of The Third Angel Alice Hoffman’s previous novel, The Third Angel , was hailed as "an unforgettable portrait of the depth of true love" ( USA Today ), "stunning" (Jodi Picoult), and "spellbinding" ( Miami Herald ). Her new novel, The Story Sisters , charts the lives of three sisters–Elv, Claire, and Meg. Each has a fate she must meet alone: one on a country road, one in the streets of Paris, and one in the corridors of her own imagination. Inhabiting their world are a charismatic man who cannot tell the truth, a neighbor who is not who he appears to be, a clumsy boy in Paris who falls in love and stays there, a detective who finds his heart’s desire, and a demon who will not let go. What does a mother do when one of her children goes astray? How does she save one daughter without sacrificing the others? How deep can love go, and how far can it take you? These are the questions this luminous novel asks. At once a coming-of-age tale, a family saga, and a love story of erotic longing, The Story Sisters sifts through the miraculous and the mundane as the girls become women and their choices haunt them, change them and, finally, redeem them. It confirms Alice Hoffman’s reputation as "a writer whose keen ear for the measure struck by the beat of the human heart is unparalleled" ( The Chicago Tribune ). Critics were generally pleased with Hoffman's latest novel, and fans will be happy that it follows the pattern of her much-loved earlier work with its vibrant characters and magical-realist elements. Though a few reviewers questioned some of her character choices and their actions, such as Elv's mother's strange passivity during the growing crisis, the Kansas City Star deemed it normal for parents to be "frozen in the face of rampant rule-breaking." Other complaints consisted of a slow plot and some melodramatic scenes, but only the Boston Globe denounced the book as completely unoriginal while still praising Hoffman's lovely prose. A moving exploration of the strengths and limitations of family bonds, The Story Sisters is quintessential, if somewhat darker, Hoffman. *Starred Review* A writer as virtuosic as Hoffman doesn’t bestow the name Story on a family lightly. So, yes, this is a many-storied novel about storytellers, brimming with magic and despair, atonement and redemption. The Story sisters, Elv, Meg, and Claire, are dark-haired beauties clustered in the attic of their old Long Island house, while their lonely mother broods below. Their all-female household, a sly variation on Little Women, is under a grim fairy-tale spell, and not even sojourns with their fairy-godmother-like grandmother in Paris can protect them. As always in Hoffman’s glimmering universe, nature is an awesome presence reflected in the mercurial human heart, and consequently, the Story girls are preternaturally sensitive to storms, ghosts, and plant and animal spirits. Meg is practical, while Elv and Claire share a tragic secret, and Elv channels her anguish into elaborate, demon-haunted tales of an imaginary parallel world until she discovers more effective means of self-punishment. The always dazzling Hoffman has outdone herself in this bewitching weave of psychologically astute fantasy and shattering realism, encompassing rape, drug addiction, disease, and fatal accidents. Her alluring characters are soulful, their suffering mythic, and though the sorrows are many and the body count high, this is an entrancing and romantic drama shot through with radiant beauty and belief in human resilience and transformation. --Donna Seaman “Hoffman’s characters are always moving back and forth, challenging our perceptions, daring us to judge them. Her sentences tremble with allegory. . . . In the end, THE STORY SISTERS , for all its magic realism, is about a family navigating through motherhood, sisterhood, daughterhood. It’s Little Women on mushrooms. (Bookish sisters beware).” – New York Times Book Review “Hoffman is celebrated for her ability to conjure plausible alternative realities, to sprinkle her landscapes with witches and other mythical creatures, while keeping her stories closely tethered to familiar terrain. There’s a mysticism that swirls about her works but, like a late-morning fog, it eventually burns off to reveal a physical and emotional topography that most all of us can recognize.” – Chicago Tribune "This bewitching novel explores the bonds of sisterhood like a haunting modern fairy tale." – Glamour “Any new book by Hoffman is an occasion to rejoice, as is the case with THE STORY SISTERS.” – Sacramento Bee “The sisters’struggle to grow and thrive in the real world will keep you riveted to the pages of this heartbreaking novel about the powers and limits of love.” – Redbook "When it comes to blending magic and the mundane routines of life, there's no finer writer than Alice Hoffman -- but even she has outdone herself with her latest novel.  THE ST