The Puppeteer's Daughters
A new novel by the award-winning author of Under The Mercy Trees.
Famed puppeteer and master manipulator Walter Gray surprises his three daughters by announcing there is a fourth at his 80th birthday party. An incomplete paternity test—and a will that places a condition on each daughter’s inheritance—suggest that the missing daughter isn’t a figment of his dementia.
Jane, the eldest, is tired of her father’s eccentricities. She remembers the scarcity of her childhood and doesn’t want another sister to share the birthright.
Rosie, born out of wedlock, sees the missing sister as her key to acceptance as a full member of the puppeteer’s family.
Cora, the youngest, born after Walter achieved fame and fortune, is most concerned with extricating herself from running Walter’s company so that she can pursue her own life.
The sisters each knew a different version of their enigmatic father, but all grew up in the presence of fairy tales acted out with marionettes and shadow puppets. If they are to find the fourth daughter and claim the legacy their father has left them, the three must confront their fractured relationships with their father and each other. Infused with fairy tales that sometimes spill magic into the sisters’ real lives, The Puppeteer’s Daughters is a stunningly-woven family saga about the cost and rewards of claiming a creative life.
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Book details
- Author
- Heather Newton
- Imprint
- Keylight Books, an imprint of Turner Publishing Company
- Published
- Pages
- 304
- Formats
- Hardcover, Paperback
- Subjects
- Fiction › Literary
Fiction › Family Life › Siblings
Fiction › Women - Topics
- Under the Mercy Trees · half sisters · paternity test · inheritance · father daughter relationships
- ISBN-13
- 9781684428588 (Hardcover)9781684428595 (Paperback)
About the author
Heather Newton ’s novel Under The Mercy Trees (HarperCollins, 2011) won the Thomas Wolfe Memorial Literary Award, was chosen by the Women’s National Book Association as a Great Group Reads Selection, and was named an Okra Pick by the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance. Her short story collection, McMullen Circle (Regal House, 2022), was a finalist for the W.S. Porter prize. Her novel The Puppeteer’s Daughters (Turner, 2022) is her second novel. A practicing attorney, she teaches creative writing for UNC-Asheville’s Great Smokies Writing Program and is co-founder and program manager for the Flatiron Writers Room in Asheville, North Carolina (flatironwritersroom.com). Visit her website at heathernewton.net.