TRUE COLORS

Author: Kristin Hannah ISBN: 9780312364106 2/2009 CONTEMPORARY Publisher: ST. MARTIN'S PRESS

The Grey sisters have always been close. After their mother’s death, the girls banded together, becoming best friends. Their stern, disapproving father cares less about his children than about his reputation. To Henry Grey, appearances are everything, and years later, he still demands that his daughters reflect his standing in the community. Winona, the oldest, needs her father’s approval most of all. An overweight bookworm who never felt at home on the sprawling horse ranch that has been in her family for three generations, she knows that she doesn’t have the qualities her father values. But as the best lawyer in town, she’s determined to someday find a way to prove her worth to him. Aurora, the middle sister, is the family peacemaker. She brokers every dispute and tries to keep them all happy, even as she hides her own secret pain. Vivi Ann is the undisputed star of the family. A stunningly beautiful dreamer with a heart as big as the ocean in front of her house, she is adored by all who know her. Everything comes easily for Vivi Ann, until a stranger comes to town. . . . In a matter of moments, everything will change. The Grey sisters will be pitted against one another in ways that none could have imagined. Loyalties will be tested and secrets revealed, and a terrible, shocking crime will shatter both their family and their beloved town.

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

TRUE COLORS is a complex epic of a story, well worth reading and sharing with your reading buddies. This tale of three sisters unfolds episodically over twenty years, deepening as it goes.

The Greys are the founding clan of their small town of Oyster Shores, Washington, and still own the ranch their family had homesteaded, though they have nothing else. Once the sisters and family were happy, but their mother died when the oldest daughter, Winona, was fourteen and everyone was frozen into their roles. Their father became a bitter drunk who only seemed to love the youngest, beautiful golden Vivi. Winona became the overweight, unlucky in love but brilliant, small town lawyer, and Aurora was average and stuck in the middle.

Everything in Vivi’s life always went perfectly and she was stuck in arrested development, never having struggled. When things go wrong due to Vivi’s mistakes and Winona breaks the sister code, their family and lives are shattered in ways they wouldn’t have predicted.

Hannah does a beautiful job in developing her characters. Like me, you will probably find yourself on one side or the other at points in the story, depending upon which sister you identify with. Nearly everyone in this story feels like a real, multi-faceted human being, and that gives the story its strength. As old-fashioned as the setup seems at the beginning, it’s not that you can’t see these events happening, especially in a small town that doesn’t change very much as the years pass.

Readers looking for an engrossing small town family epic won’t find better to read this February than TRUE COLORS.

Heather Hiestand