Received this ARC through Net Galley. A quick read about family, secrets, sisterhood, loss and moving forward. I appreciated the development of distinct but relatable characters and an ending that makes me hope for a sequel.

A well-paced and plotted novel. Unlike others with multiple characters and storylines, The Sweeney Sisters developed each character well and pulled them together through a single plot line of trying to find their mysterious father's memoir. I got to know each of the sisters enough to care about their story and was left wanting more novels for each sister to see where their lives lead later down the road. Unlike some novels where it seems like the author focuses on beginning, middle and then rushes the end, this author took her time and the end was satisfying and actually seemed worthy of the rest of the book.

I'd definitely recommend this as a light reading, but with enough gravity that it's still worth the time.

*I received an advance copy through Book Club Girl in exchange for my honest review.

Lian has done it again. Her first two books – “Helen of Pasadena” and “Elizabeth the First Wife” – were very enjoyable, light and fun. Her third novel – “The Sweeney Sisters” – feels more substantial but is just as readable and fun! Three sisters – as different as they can be, but as bonded as sisters are – cope with their famous father, loss after loss after loss and then an unexpected gain. I love that they are flawed but very likeable individuals. I love the real-ness of their emotions and their questions, their thoughts about what it means to have a famous father and his legacy. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and can’t wait to get my hard copy when it releases in April (pre-ordered already!).

Thanks NetGalley for the Advanced Readers Copy! Thanks Lian for a wonderful book I can easily recommend to all!

I really liked the beginning of this book and was quite excited about it. By the discovery of the half-sister after their father's death, the book started to get bogged down with too much description and too much angst. I may return to it later, but I haven't finished it yet. I will still buy it based on the beginning and the topic.

I must say, I had zero expectations out of this book when I started. I even hesitated to start it. But Lian Dolan knows what what she is doing! I was drawn in from page one and didn't let go until the last page. I devoured this book in a day in a half. When I wasn't reading it, I was thinking about the Sweeney Sisters! This is a great story about family and discovering who our family really is. Letting go of what you think you know and accepting the new reality.
The Sweeney sisters grew up with a famous writer as a father and before her untimely passing, their mother was a poet and artist. After dad passes, the sisters learn the reality of the past and the secrets their father was keeping, including a daughter know one knew about.
Without going into too much detail, I loved learning about these sisters and the past. Growing up on Willow Lane must have been magical for a time. I would love to see this house in person, because in my mind it is an amazing home! The sisters all grew up and definitely have their own individuality. I definitely most identify with Liza, the oldest. Coming from a family where I was the oldest, her struggles hit me the hardest and right smack dab in the chest sometimes. The oldest daughters carry so much on their shoulders sometimes.
Overall, A wonderful story of family! I will definitely be recommending this to others and I will be looking for more works by Lian Dolan! Special thanks to NetGalley, Harper Collins - William Morrow, and The Book Club Girl Early Reads program for the advance digital copy in exchange for my honest review.
#TheSweeneySisters #NetGalley

Enjoyable book about the strength of sibling relationships. The Sweeney sisters learn that their sibling bonds need to stretch.....but is there room? The sisters learn that they’re able to overcome more than they ever thought possible and that new beginnings can be a great gift.

A twist on a sibling tale with a newly discovered sister for the Sweeney sisters to come to terms with. The characters were likable and the premise was new and current with the discovery of a DNA match. Plus the fact that the new sister was next door all along added a good mystery as well
I thought it started out pretty strong, but lost steam and character development. I wanted to find out more about the original sisters and their mother. A nice quick read.

I loved this book. Now I’m going to tell you why. I know some readers like the end of a book to be tied up in a pink ribbon, in other words, happily ever after. I personally prefer what I like to call a ‘future potential’ ending that I can imagine how I would end the book. Well, the author has pleased the happily ever afters and me too.

This mixed ending is perfect for this book since it’s about mixed family relations. Liza is strong in organization but perhaps too strong, too rigid, too take charge while Maggie is totally free and disorganized and seemingly happy or maybe just haphazard. Tricia, she’s a high powered New York lawyer on her way up and sadly that’s all she seems to be.

An event occurs and, to be trite, their world is turned upside down and we’ll add inside out and suddenly everything these women believed has changed but the question is will it be for the better or far worse. Past history, as they remember it is about to be thrown back in their faces and it’s how they each handle it that makes this a good read.

The author has created a thorough depiction of these diverse personalities and how past history, which cannot be changed, must change them forever.

Thank you to Book Club Girls, Netgalley, William Morrow Harper Collins Publishers and Lian Dolan for this ebook ARC.

The Sweeney Sisters
Liza, Tricia & Maggie, the lively and lovely red-haired Sweeney sisters, reunite in their well-heeled seaside Connecticut hometown after their famous father’s death. William Sweeney was a prominent American novelist (a fictional Salinger/Updike/Cheever mashup). Charged with locating the manuscript of his valuable missing memoir, they uncover startling secrets about their parents, their neighbors and each other. Liza is the dutiful, successful oldest sister whose marriage suddenly implodes. Tricia, a driven attorney and runner, finds that pressing pause is actually pleasant. Maggie is the baby of the family who embraces an unstructured artist lifestyle but also craves stability. Over the long summer, they reconnect with lost loves, meet a mysterious fourth sister, struggle with the truths contained in their father’s unflinching memoir and discover that they can rewrite their own stories.

An easy fun read. Three sisters back together following the death of their father, a famous author. The sisters are all likeable in their own way. The author weaves the stories of each sister together to form an absorbing family drama. I enjoyed this novel and will look for others written by Lian Dolan.

The Sweeney Sisters is a delightful read. Three sisters' lives become quite jumbled after their father's death. They discover many of his secrets, including another sibling. Each sisters processes the mess in her own way and comes out stronger. Character development was good, except William Sweeney was a self abosorbed jerk. The ending was lovely and handled masterfully.

This is a good read. It didn't blow me away and at times I felt like the characters were a bit one dimensional, but I really liked the concept and I enjoyed the literary backdrop. I could have done with a bit more flushing out and setting the stage at the beginning up until they found out about the fourth sister (their reaction to this revelation seemed a bit bland and anticlimactic given the level of surprise this would be).

I loved the Little Women vibes I got from the sisters. All so very different, not always on the same page, often frustrated with each other, but so very well versed in one another’s tendencies and patterns.

I did struggle a bit with some of the flow and how it would switch (seemingly randomly) from one character’s inner thoughts or actions to another’s.

This is mainly an intimate look at family (and more specifically - sister) dynamics and I really identified with that, having a sister myself with whom I have a complicated relationship. I found a lot of the internal as well as sister-to-sister dialogue to be very relatable and reminiscent of sisterly interactions.

This will be a great read for those who love family sagas like The Nest, The Most Fun We Ever Had, or others that aren’t as much plot-heavy but relationship and family dynamics-heavy.

Appreciate the opportunity for an early read!

I received an ARC of this book from the author, publisher, and NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

I love reading family sagas and this story did not disappoint. The Sweeney Sisters tells the tale of a family coming to terms with loss and finding out the people that they love are not who they always thought they were. At times, I wished for more depth in some of the characters stories and the book sometimes read like a TV drama. However, I was happy to have read it in the end and was pleased with the outcomes.

This was a beautifully written book, it's emotional and at times humorous. Every family has secrets, most times it's discovered at the worst. The relationship between the sisters are very much relatable, each one with different emotions and questions. Their love for one another brings them together and shows us the resilience of what a family can overcome. I received this ARC from Harper Collins Publishers.

The was a sweet story and a quick read with a great beginning and a perfect ending. I felt for the sisters having to come to terms with their fathers secrets and seeing his selfishness on another level, and I really liked Tricia, Liza, and Serena.


For most of the novel I couldn't stand Maggie. She seemed unmotivated and even lazy, a grown adult who was unwilling to make her own way through life, instead relying on the generosity of others. Both of the cars she'd owned had been given to her as gifts. She's an artist without any other job, but she doesn't seem motivated to fulfill her commissions either. When the sisters have to sell the home they grew up in, Maggie is upset that there won't be enough money from the sale for her to buy a place on Martha's Vineyard. When she learns she has another sister, her first reaction is anger that she'll have to split the inheritance money another way. Maggie not only didn't like helping her sisters with any kind of work, she would actively look for ways to get out of it. Despite the fact that she lives off of others, we are told that Maggie considers that "everything that went right was her doing and everything that went wrong was someone else's fault". I was disgusted by Maggie, especially when she was so cruel to her sister Liza (on whom Maggie was reliant for her living) apparently just for the fun of it.

Fortunately Maggie grew up by the end. All of the sisters grew, and I really appreciated that. It made for a satisfying read.

This is a sweet story that I would have felt comfortable recommending to any reader if it hadn't been for the strong language.

Thank you to NetGalley and the Book Club Girls group for this early read.

I am so happy to have had the opportunity to read this book. The Sweeney Sisters was a delightful read. I put a good deal of emphasis on whether I am going to enjoy a book if it captures my attention from the beginning and allows me to become absorbed in the story with the characters. This did not disappoint. I had a hard time putting it down because I couldn’t wait to read what happens next. It was a touching story of the relationship between three sisters growing up and dealing with loss, love and family secrets. DNA tests have become so popular and this story will touch many who may be skeptical about opening a Pandora’s box.

I really enjoyed this book, and it has made me want to read more of this author's work and I think I would really enjoy her podcast. The author wrote an easy read about sisters, which she knows a lot about as her podcast is with her own sisters.
The book starts out with us meeting the three Sweeney sisters; Liza, Tricia and Maggie, as they come to learn of their father's passing. They come together to their childhood home to piece together the estate, and all the new information they come to find out about their father's life. The book follows them through finding out some pretty shocking details about their father, and it goes into what each sister does to handle it. The first shock is to find out there is fourth Sweeney sister who grew up as their neighbor. It just gets more interesting from there!

This is a beautiful book about the Sweeney Sisters, who must navigate grief following their father's death. What I enjoyed so much about this book is that the characters were well-developed and real; vulnerable and flawed. A solid four-star read.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The characters were flawed and likable. The story was well thought out and entertaining.

The Sweeney Sisters by Lian Dolan is a wonderful novel that delves into the complicated relationships and feelings within families.
It was interesting to read the complexities of the disagreements, yet loyalties and love that interplayed between the three main characters that are sisters: Liz, Maggie, and Trisha. Each have their own personalities, hang-ups, pasts, strengths, and weaknesses. They get on each other’s nerves, but love one another despite it all. Each sibling had their “niche” and role to play in the family dynamics. Liz: the oldest is a planner and manager, Maggie the “mess-up”, and Trisha the lawyer and numbers gal. I enjoyed reading their interactions and the paths they were leading.

I also enjoyed some of the curveballs and wrenches that were thrown in after their father’s death and learning about their half-sister Serena.

I also truly enjoyed their transformations and the ending. It was definitely fitting.

5/5 stars

Thank you NetGalley and William Morrow/Harper Collins for this ARC and in return I am submitting my unbiased and voluntary review and opinion.

I am posting this review to my GR and Bookbub accounts immediately and will post it to my Amazon and B&N accounts upon publication.