This has to be one of |the most haunting, |heart-breaking books I've |read this year.

Elv, Meg and Claire live with their mother on Long Island. They're beautiful, mysterious, intriguing and envied by all their peers.

They also have their own form of communication - something that appears harmless and endearing at first, but turns out the |be the source of their eventual undoing.

It is this secret world that the sisters inhabit that has you questioning throughout the beginning of the novel whether this is a fantasy tale or one set in reality.

But we soon learn how a single event - always alluded to but never elaborated on - changes these happy girls forever.

As they |grow up, their secrecy and mysteriousness start to destroy their bond of sisterhood. This event - Elv and Claire's encounter with a man - and the absence of their father drive the sisters further apart.

Their imaginary world is no longer a haven and soon angels become demons and the good become the bad.

In the end each sister has to negotiate a life for herself, each has a fate she has to meet alone. Whatever the outcome, closure is not a classic happy ending. It is heartbreak, suffering and eventually acceptance of a reality where good and bad are part of a whole.

The New York Times says The Story Sisters is "Little Women on mushrooms". It is much more.

In this book, Hoffman reminds us of the power of words to hurt, to heal, to create alternate realities and to bind us forever to people, no matter where fate takes us. - Meneesha Govender