The Precious One

Two sisters struggle to please their smart, manipulative, and narcissistic father, in bestseller de los Santos’s (Falling Together) newest family drama. For 17 years, Taisy Cleary (now 35), along with her mother and her brother, Marcus, have had minimal contact with her father, Wilson. When Wilson beckons after suffering a major heart attack, Taisy, who still yearns for his approval, requires little persuasion to come to his side. Sixteen-year-old Willow is Wilson’s other daughter (Wilson left Taisy’s family to be with Willow’s mother). Willow has been sheltered and controlled by her father her entire life—he forbade her from watching television or movies or reading books written later than the 19th century—but she’s jarred into the real world following his heart attack. To Taisy, Willow has always been the golden child—the one Wilson chose to love. To Willow, Taisy and Marcus are the seedy others, the “earlier ones.” The sisters’ shaky relationship is altered when Taisy learns of Willow’s inappropriate relationship with an older man. The slow fracturing of each sister’s perception of the other and the strong three-dimensional characters are exceptionally well crafted. And the predictability of the ending is more than made up for by the fact that de los Santos’s characters’ journeys are perfectly paced. (Mar.)