Everyone's Talking About Sisterhood (and The Moon Sisters book giveaway)

The Moon Sisters is about will-o-the-wisps, trainhopping, and unrealized dreams…but mostly it’s about sisterhood. So we’re celebrating the release of this novel by gathering some of our favorite bloggers to share their take on sisterhood. First up is Therese Walsh, author of The Moon Sisters, who is visiting The Muffin to tell us about sisterhood in her family.

Sisters Forever: Aimee, Therese, and Heather

On Sisterhood
by Therese Walsh

I have two beloved sisters, both younger, and our interactions with each other—the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful—are all reflected in the story of The Moon Sisters. They’ve also helped to create some of the most memorable moments of my life.

I was eight when my first sister was born, and shortly thereafter—which trying to figure out the mechanics of a diaper—I stepped away from the changing table and my sister rolled over (a new trick!) and fell onto the floor. She wailed as I panicked. I lied to my mother about what had happened until guilt got the better of me, and then I fessed up and apologized.

Earliest lesson: Sisters can get you into trouble.

Also: Never step away from a changing table.

Once, when that same sister was older, she took our youngest sister’s favorite pair of pants and drove them to an embankment and threw them into a stream. Our youngest sister had been driving her crazy for one reason or another, and retaliation had seemed a good option at the time. But somehow, some way, my youngest sister knew—just knew—that our middle sister had taken the pants. Not only that, she had a feeling where those pants had ended up. She actually found them, filthy, wet, at the bottom of the ravine.

Lesson: Sisters know things. Don’t try to prevent this knowledge.

Life with sisters is made up of a million little moments when you’re all living together under the same roof. Waiting together for the ice cream truck. Trying to cheer one another up with crazy antics like dancing stuffed animals. Food experimentation. Secret-telling. Talk of love and sex and politics and health and family and life and death. Everything. Secrets are rare, and the bond can be extraordinarily strong, even when sisters are miffed with one another.

Honesty—it’s the way of sisters, even when it causes conflict.

Now that we’re all grown, we’re just as close as ever. Maybe closer. We’ll never again wonder if that missing CD is in someone else’s bedroom or what happened to that pair of pants!

Last summer I had a health scare, which thankfully turned out just fine. While one sister, in town, visited with me and soothed with face-to-face contact, my other sister, from away, communicated by phone and sent a constant stream of positive thoughts in my direction. Both strengthened me during one of the most tenuous times of my life.

Sisters can be maddening and nosy, and supportive and loving. My sisters are a vital part of my bedrock, and my life with them has helped to define me in complex and significant ways.

Do you have a sister story to share? I’d love to hear it.

About The Moon Sisters

In The Moon Sisters, her second novel, Therese Walsh wanted to write about one sister’s quest to find will-o’-the-wisp light, which was her mother’s unfulfilled dream. Also called “foolish fires,” these lights are sometimes seen over wetlands and are thought to lead those who follow them to treasure. Despite the promise, they are never captured and sometimes lead to injury or even death for adventurers who follow them. The metaphor of that fire – that some dreams and goals are impossible to reach, and that hope itself may not be innately good – eventually rooted its way into deeper meaning as the Moon sisters tried to come to terms with real-world dreams and hopes, and with each other, in their strange new world.

Olivia and Jazz Moon are polar opposites: one a dreamy synesthete, able to see sounds and smell sights and the other controlling and reality driven. What will happen when they are plunged into 24/7 togetherness and control is not an option? Will they ever be able to see the world through the other’s eyes and confront the things they fear the most? Death. Suicide. The loss of faith and hope. Will they ultimately believe that life is worth living, despite the lack of promise?

The writing of The Moon Sisters was a five year journey and at times author Therese Walsh felt like it was her own “foolish fire.” But remember, some fires are worth the chase!

Hardcover: 336 pages (also available in e-formats)
Publisher: Crown (March 4, 2014)
ISBN-10: 0307461602
ISBN-13: 978-0307461605
ASIN: B00F1W0E1M

Read a review of The Moon Sisters on the Muffin here.

***** BOOK GIVEAWAY *****

Thanks to Therese who is giving away a print copy of The Moon Sisters. Just enter the Rafflecopter form below to be entered in the drawing.

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Want more chances to win? Visit all the other bloggers talking about sisterhood today to enter.

Who else is talking about sisterhood?

The blogs listed below have all decided to share their stories, essays, poems, photos, or other means of creative expression on the topic of sisterhood. We really have no idea what bloggers will come up with, but we can't wait to find out! So check out the blogs listed below and see what they're up to!

Lit Ladies

The Unfaithful Widow

Caroline Clemmons

A Ponderance of Things

One Sister’s Journey

Words by Webb

Mother-Daughter Book Club

Vickie S. Miller

One Writer’s Journey

Renee’s Pages

A Book Lover’s Retreat

Biblioteca

I Love to Read and Review Books!

Traveling with T.

Me and Reading

Laurie Here

Cassandra M’s Place

The GaGa Sisterhood

Deal Sharing Aunt

Choices