Sisterland

by Curtis Sittenfeld (Random House, $27)

 “Novelists get called master storytellers all the time, but Curtis Sittenfeld really is one,” said Maggie Shipstead in The Washington Post. A tale about clairvoyant twin sisters may sound like an excursion into soapy melodrama, but the author of Prep and American Wife makes readers feel as if they’re listening to the long, candid outpouring of “a matter-of-fact but mesmerizing friend.” As adults, Violet and Kate Shramm have adapted to their shared gift in diametrically opposed ways—one becoming a professional psychic while the other, the book’s narrator, has chosen to suppress her premonitions and live as conventionally as possible. But after Violet appears on national TV predicting that a catastrophic earthquake will soon strike St. Louis, Kate is forced to decide what she truly believes in. In the suspenseful tale that follows, plain, likable Kate serves as an indispensable “anchor of realism,” said Trine Tsouderos in the Chicago Tribune. This is what Sittenfeld has always done best: “She makes plain riveting.”