Summer Cannibals

In Hobson’s scattershot debut, three grown sisters—Georgina, Jax, and Pippa—converge on their troubled parents’ waterfront mansion along the banks of Lake Ontario. Ostensibly summoned there for a garden tour, each of the sisters arrives burdened with emotional baggage: Pippa, eight months pregnant, has curiously left her husband and four children back in New Zealand; Georgina, an academic, is alienated from her own husband, also an academic; Jax, also married, has unresolved romantic issues with a high school love interest. Add to this confluence of marital drama the bizarre, licentious relationship between the women’s parents, David and Margaret, and the plot starts to seem like a few bad marriages too many. The tour leaves David’s beloved garden trampled, then a mysterious young woman, dubbed “Goldilocks” by Margaret, shows up sleeping in a guest room bed. From there, the novel tips into melodramatic territory, as readers discover of a slew of secrets and revelations, including Pippa’s husband’s interest in polyamory. Though occasionally evocative, the writing isn’t precise or particular enough to sustain interest in the novel’s various scandalous threads. The stately house at the center of the novel exerts a profound hold on its characters, one that never fully grabs the reader. Agent: Gail Hochman, Brandt & Hochman Literary. (Sept.)