Waiting on Wednesday

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.

This week's pick: Sisters of Heart and Snow by Margaret Dilloway
Due out: April 7, 2015

Product information taken from Goodreads:

The critically acclaimed, award-winning author of How to Be an American Housewife returns with a poignant story of estranged sisters reunited when a request from their ailing mother reveals a long-buried family secret.

Rachel and Drew Snow are sisters. Though they were confidants and cohorts as little girls, their lives have followed completely different paths. In fact, as adults they appear to occupy different planets.  
 
Rachel hasn’t returned to her childhood home since being kicked out by her strict father after an act of careless teenage rebellion. Despite the estrangement from her parents, Rachel married a good man and is a mother to two strong-minded teens—she has a full, authentic life. Drew, younger by four years, followed her passion for music and works a variety of side jobs to supplement gigs and recording sessions. She’s now at an impasse, longing for the stability that has always eluded her. Both sisters recall how close they were, but the distance between them seems more than they can bridge. When their deferential Japanese mother, Haruki, is diagnosed with dementia, the family is surprised when she gives Rachel power of attorney. But no one is more surprised—and angered—than Rachel’s domineering father, Killian. Killian’s relentless anger, Haruki’s seeming favoritism: each is a wedge in the gulf dividing the sisters.
 
In a rare moment of lucidity, Haruki mysteriously asks Rachel to find a book in her sewing room. To get into the house, let alone find the book, Rachel needs her sister’s help. But finding the book turns out to be just the beginning. The book—which tells the tale of real-life female samurai Tomoe Gozen, an epic saga of love, loss, and conflict during twelfth-century Japan—reveals truths about Drew and Rachel’s relationship that resonate across the centuries, and helps them connect in a way that turns their differences into their strongest asset. The two sisters realize that courage is not just for the bold warrior women of ancient times, but for them, as well.