She Treads Softly: The Wrong Sister

Friday, July 18, 2025

The Wrong Sister

The Wrong Sister by Claire Douglas
8/5/25; 384 pages
Harper Perennial

The Wrong Sister by Claire Douglas is a highly recommended mystery/domestic drama that begs the question: How well do you really know your sister?

Tasha and her husband Aaron lives in Chew Norton, where they grew up, and have three-year-old twin daughters. When her successful older sister, Alice, and her wealthy husband Kyle, suggest the two stay at their vacation home in Venice while they babysit the girls, Tasha and Aaron are thrilled. They have a strange man following them in Venice, which is unsettling, and then they receive a phone call. Someone broke into their home. Kyle is dead and Alice is hospitalized. The two immediately return home to their daughters while the police investigate. Then Tasha receives a note saying, "It was supposed to be you."

This is an even paced novel full of secrets that will definitely hold your attention. There are two mysteries in the plot. First, is the who and why concerning Kyle's murder and the question if the target was supposed to be Tasha. Then there is the missing third daughter, Holly, who was abducted as a baby and greatly impacted their lives. There are several red herrings, numerous secrets, and multiple revelations along the way.

The complex plot is mainly told through Tasha's point-of-view, with additional chapters narrated by Jeanette, Alice and Tasha's mother, and a few chapters by a woman named Bonnie. Suspicions run high and there is misdirection as secrets and suspects are revealed. The final denouement provides a satisfying conclusion.

The Wrong Sister is a good choice for those who enjoy domestic dramas full of secrets. Thanks to Harper Perennial for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.