1 Joanna Trollope—who writes historical romances under the pen name Caroline Harvey and who has authored Britannia's Daughters, a study of women in the British Empire—has published a dozen novels in sixteen years: The Choir, A Village Affair, A Passionate Man, The Rector's Wife, The Men and the Girls, A Spanish Lover, The Best of Friends, Next of Kin, Other People's Children, Marrying the Mistress, Girl from the South, and, most recently, Brother and Sister. As the titles of her novels suggest, Trollope's forte is family life in contemporary England, especially village life, often with an ecclesiastical flavor. Relationships and situations that appear unassailable are rocked by changes that demand adjustment and accommodation. Trollope excels at detailing the fallout of such seismic shocks.

2 Brother and Sister is no different. The titular characters, born of different mothers but adopted by the same parents, now married and settled with children of their own, have grown up unusually close, united by the knowledge that, unlike other children, they were chosen. Suddenly Nathalie realizes that she has to know where she comes from, and she communicates that impulse to her brother David. Their quest takes each of them on a journey of discovery and self-discovery. What they do not anticipate is how the quest will affect their families—parents, spouses, and children—not to mention the families of their birth mothers. The changes that occur unleash tidal waves that spread ever-widening ripples through their entire lives, including their careers. Nathalie's husband, Steven Ross, proprietor of a design company, for example, opens the narrative as he "contemplated his small and satisfying empire" (2), but, by the conclusion of the novel, his empire will be shattered. David, a landscape designer, married to Marnie Dexter from Winnipeg, will decide to relocate his family home and business in Canada. How they get from here to there makes for intriguing reading.

3 Trollope has perfected the slow curve. Beginning with stability, her novels build gradually to considerable intensity, revealing the truth of persons and relationships. She maneuvers a community of families deftly, moving effortlessly from group to group in realistic but memorable domestic scenes. Her style of writing is immensely readable, and her ability to convey the nuances of real relationships and domestic life is unsurpassed.