Sisters in Romance by Kimber Chin
With Mother’s Day coming up, I was thinking about all the important women in my life. Two of these women are my sisters, both younger than myself, both very different, yet we’re all similar enough that complete strangers recognize us as being related.
Our romance heroines also often have sisters. I’m not a fan of the evil sister/stepsister phenom (maybe because I fear being nominated in real life for that role). On the other hand, I don’t believe in “perfect” sister relationships either (we grew up pulling each other’s hair, how could it be perfect?).
The great sister relationships in romance are more complex. Lillian and Daisy Bowman from Lisa Kleypas’ Wallflower series are two of my favorites. Both women have a shared childhood and many characteristics in common, including loving hearts and a tendency to play rounders in their knickers. They are also two very different people. Lillian, the elder, is quite bossy and controlling (being an elder sister, I’ll admit to being quite bossy and controlling). Daisy, the youngest, is a bit of a dreamer and a tad bit sheltered (as my sisters may be reading this, I won’t say whether this applies to them – let’s just say it COULD happen). They love each other and the men loving them face the additional hurdle of convincing over protective sisters that they’re ‘good enough.’
In my first novel, Breach Of Trust, Anne, the heroine, has a complicated relationship with her younger sister Ginny. They were assigned labels growing up, as many children are, that they struggle to move past in adulthood. Anne is the smart sister. Ginny is the pretty sister.
I cheated a bit, grounding it in my own experience (sans the drama – my life isn’t that exciting). I was always labeled the smart sister. Like Anne, I don’t think it was because I was more intelligent. I believe it was because I had brunette hair while my two sisters had gorgeous golden red locks (that curled and bounced around their shoulders while mine sat on my head like some dead rodent). It wasn’t all that bad. I worked harder in school and in life to prove this tag correct. Anne did the same. It contributed to our successes.
So who are your favorite fictional sisters? What do you love about them? What makes them special? One lucky commenter will receive an eBook copy of my first ever novel Breach Of Trust.
Good day, truly good quality article, thanks a lot!
Oh, and as to sisters in fiction. I suppose the ones I think of first are the March sisters in “Little Women.” They are such individuals and yet love each other. They might gang up on each other from time to time but above all, they stick together through thick and thin. I never really felt that closeness. I’ve been removed from my sister by distance and life experience for so long that we each know little about our daily lives unless she’s spending time at my place for a few days or I’m spending time at hers. Those 6 years I mentioned previously were the last time we ever really lived in the same place. Since then we’ve been separated by 120 miles or more all our lives.
I’ve ruminated a lot over the last few years about the relationship with my siblings, two brothers–more than 5 and a half and 9 and a half years younger than I–and a sister almost 11 and a half years younger.
I guess for a while there, I too was a bossy older sister before I disappeared for 2 years overseas, was home for about 6 years and then was gone for 10 more. I didn’t realize until about 5 years ago, after our mother died (our father died 20 years before she did) that my sister, at least, had a very incomplete and mistaken idea of what who and what I really was. After all, she was barely 7 years old when I first left the family fold. And to me, she always was the young child who would only stay with our mother or me, whenever Mother was unavailable. She was, however, also the one who had made a much greater success of her life: she was married to a nice guy, whom I actually knew better than my siblings since he stayed with me for a year in Europe, and had four lovely children. She also was a nurse and for many years ran a summer lodge with her husband and children. I, on the other hand, was not married and had finally had to quit working because of chronic illness.
However, I have always felt close to her, even if I do ask her for more advice than she has asked me in the last 30 years. I am also still trying to change her misconceptions as I try to view her with different eyes. We certainly get along better together than our brothers do with each other or us. I’m so glad that I have siblings after being a lonely only for more than five years. I think, though, in order to get any sort of true respect from them, I’ll have to write my life story from before they were really conscious of what life was all about. My early life is certainly very, very different from what theirs was.
Oh, you’re going to get a kick out of this one. The Baldwin sisters from The Waltons. Okay, so not sisters from a book but still….. I loved the quirky interaction between these two.
As for books, the first pair that come to mind are the twins from Jude Deveraux’s Twin of Fire and Twin of Ice. I can’t remember their names right off, but I do remember their characters. As I recall, one was a bit more flighty than the other. Too fun.
Goosh I really don’t know all of them are my sister in some kind of way.
Hugs!
Lisa
Hello Kimber Chin:) Since I just came back home from a real “sister’s week” (two younger sisters) it’s upper most in my mind. Although we have a lot of gray now, and my sisters are doing high lights and low lights and such…we were naturally a brunette (me), a blonde, and a redhead:) Talk about. We are also very different in looks (other than hair) and personality but the bond has always been tight…and that’s been 63+ years:) We all live in different states now and while we don’t always have daily contact, when we’re together it’s as if no time at all has passed; if one or the other of us is in need we’re there for each other. One would never know by our actions that we’re all in our 60’s…we fall into being just as goofy, silly, ragging on each other or laughing hysterically until we wet ourselves as we’ve ever been. I can’t imagine my life without them in it. We each have different strengths and weaknesses but somehow we blend. I honestly don’t know that we could ever live together again but for short periods of time it really works:)
As far as fictional sisters, I think my favorites are also Christine Feehan’s Drake sister series because I’ve been reading each of the seven sisters’ stories for years. Their bond and support of each other is unequaled as far as I know.
Although it’s been awhile since I’ve read the stories, Christina Dodd also had a sister series that I can think of….Nancy
Ohhh….duhh… of course, Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants! Man, oh, man, I did a sister post and didn’t mention that book? What was I smokin?
Tameka, so true. As a romance lover (and now writer), love IS the power that keeps us together (and some of us sane).
Tameka, you stole my answer! LOL
Ann Brashares has a book for adults called “The Last Summer of You and Me” that had an interesting relationship between two sisters. Also, her Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants characters were not actually sisters, but they all had a similar relationship, including the fights that you have with sisters.
Deidre
deidre_durance@hotmail.com
Christian Feehan Drake Sister Series. I love this book because each sister as a special power on their own, but they are more powerful togther. Easc of their powers are linked together and they are dependent on each other. But it’s love that keeps them togther. And all family should be like that