Never were there such devoted sisters...or so the song would have it. Though some may be inseparable, for others the relationship arouses intense, tangled emotions. Louisa May Alcott, Mary Flanagan, Janet Frame, Elizabeth Gaskell, Georgina Hammick, Elizabeth Jolley, Katherine Mansfield and Edna O'Brien are among the prestigious writers who unravel this intricate bond.
Stories that reveal remarkable allegiances and private codes are counterpointed by those of sisters pitched against one another in battles for parental affection or sibling supremacy. Here are sisters who lose one another to lovers or to marriage, and one who chooses her sister in favour of a husband...Rivalry, companionship, love and dislike feature in a collection that exposes the innermost secrets of family life. As delightful, surprising - and sometimes disturbing - as the ties they explore, these stories are essential reading.

Exceptional ... I shall read this selection many times * MOIRA SHEARER, DAILY TELEGRAPH *
That most rare of volumes, a sisterly literary companion * IRISH TIMES *

Shena Mackay was born in Edinburgh in 1944. Her writing career began when she won a prize for a poem written when she was fourteen. Two novellas, Dust Falls on Eugene Schlumberger and Toddler on the Run were published before she was twenty. Redhill Rococo won the 1987 Fawcett Prize, Dunedin won a 1994 Scottish Arts Council Book Award, The Orchard on Fire was shortlisted for the 1996 Booker Prize and, in 2003, Heligoland was shortlisted for both the Orange Prize and Whitbread Novel Award. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and lives in Southampton.