This is the first book I've read by Daisy Johnson and certainly won't be my last. Her whip-sharp yet completely atmospheric writing took me straight into the plot and the characters. And who are they? The wonderfully named teenage sisters, July and September.

This is a story of the unique and intense relationship only sisters can have, especially ones born 10 months apart. Not twins, but linked as if they are. We meet the sisters as they move house with their mother due to an incident in their home town of Oxford. The detail of which is tantalisingly held back until the end, and then spins the whole story on its head when it is revealed.

I could not put this book down, the brooding, often sinister, atmosphere and detailed description kept me wanting more. It brought to mind Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle too, which is only ever going to be a great thing!

This is a wonderful book that keeps its secrets until the end. I loved the way it shifted from psychological thriller to a study of extreme grief. Though it probably isn't quite right for our selection, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to friends.

Long sentences interrupted by dialogue without speech marks, makes the tale of two sisters seem like a lyric sang by an untiring child. September and July are inseparable and their mother distant. After an incident at the girls’ school, the family leaves Oxford for Settle House, situated at the coast in North York Moors.

The strong vivid images evoked by the sensuous language will leave you drunk with emotion as you read through July’s and her mum Sheela’s account of trying to settle into a new environment. They retell the present and the past and the result is eery and disturbing. ‘Sisters’ shows the powerful grip of human connection will often leave scars when severed and will make you wonder what you have just read long after you finish the last page. It’s wonderful and memorable.

September and July are two sisters with a macabre past. After a mysterious incident at school, their mother is forced to relocate the family in an attempt to move on, but darkness seems to follow the sisters everywhere... The bare bones of this plot could be straight out of a commercial thriller, but Daisy Johnson’s beautiful writing elevates it and Sisters becomes an altogether different beast. Johnson is a magnificent writer and I read this book in one sitting because it had me gripped in its talons from the opening. The symbiotic relationship between the sisters is charged with menace and uncertainty. I did see the ‘twist’ regarding the incident coming but this did not dampen my enthusiasm for the book, as Johnson isn’t a writer who relies on schlock to impress her readers. A claustrophobic, neo-gothic oddity with shades of Shirley Jackson, Sisters cements Johnson as one of our brightest contemporary talents.

Sisters September and July are moved cross country with their mother to an old family home after an incident, the details of which are unclear. The book focuses on the girls’ intense relationship while slowly revealing details about what happened before they moved. I don’t want to reveal too much about the plot as I think the slow reveal of the story is part of the book’s appeal.
Daisy Johnson writes in such a poetic and lyrical way that draws you in. Sisters is very similar to Everything Under but, for me, packs more of a punch. The book is an entrancing read brought together with fascinating characters in the two sisters and a chilling setting in form of the old mysterious house.
The comparisons to Shirley Jackson are well deserved. The story is compellingly eery with a stunning, haunting ending. Although a short novel, it’s a great story to dive into and get lost in. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the copy.

I thought this was a fantastic portrayal of the smothering closeness of family. With a build up of tension throughout its an unsettling read but a complete page turner. Five stars.

July and September are sisters. They are also best of friends. Something sinister happened to them back in Oxford, but we don't quite know what. They move to an isolated house with their single mother. She happens to be depressed. There is a lot of love in this book, and not always necessarily of the good kind. But still a deep, felt love. I couldn't put it down.

This book was everything I wanted it to be and more. Daisy Johnson is a force to be reckoned with. After reading Everything Under, I wasn't sure she could top that phenomenal book. But I was wrong. The book might be short, but don't be fooled. It packs a lot in.

An eerie glimpse into the lives of haunted people, SISTERS is compelling and beautiful.

Born just ten months apart, July and September are as close as twins, never needing anyone but each other. When their single mother moves them to Settle House, a palpable unease slowly emerges, as do a series of unsettling revelations that will keep you reading until the very end.

Multi-faceted in theme and style, SISTERS creeps upon you and is completely absorbing.

Sisters is a razor sharp mystery story. Deeply depressed Sheela, a children's author, has moved her family to a remote coastal cottage. Something really bad has happened at the school of her daughter's July and September. It feels like a ghost story. The house seems alive, and is haunted with the memories of those who used to live there. Sheela rarely ventures out of her room, and the kids fend for themselves. The nature of reality seems porous. September and July are dark and light. September has a pull on July that is really unhealthy and threatens her wellbeing. The feeling of dread builds to a revelatory and shocking ending.

Haunting, surreal and poetic, I thoroughly enjoyed Daisy Johnson's second novel. When sisters July and September mysteriously move to an eerie house in the countryside, far away from their childhood home in Oxford, they begin to engage in the games of their childhood, orchestrated by the domineering older sister September. The uncertainty of the events that led to their upheaval create a dizzy suspense throughout the whole novel, which erupts in a moving and startling conclusion. Excellently paced and perfect for fans of Sarah Moss' Ghost Wall.

I had read a previous book by this author, Everything Under, so was pleased to be able to review this new one. About halfway through, though, I remembered my experience with the earlier book - that of being engaged with her prose but underwhelmed by the plot. This time I again found the plot left me cold, nothing new here, and events approached so obliquely that I had to reread sections several times to work out what was meant. Since it’s impossible to describe the story without spoilers I won’t even attempt it. Crucially, though, for me the writing here lacked the atmosphere of her earlier work that I’d admired, the house was creepy but not really creepy enough, the relationship between the sisters and between the sisters and their mother didn’t quite convince. A disappointment and not a book I’d be likely to recommend.

Daisy Johnson delivers another masterfully vivid, ominous book. Personally I seem to have been on a run of reading about small families escaping to small houses far away from anywhere, with some creeping dread sitting at the heart of them. They're my kind of book, which means *this* is absolutely my kind of book. I'm wary of saying anything more specific than this, because I rather think the less you know, going in, the better. So much so than I've deleted my initial response which was a sort of list of references along the lines of 'if you like X you'll like....!'

Johnson manages to write her characters and their situation in such a way that the reader find themselves abruptly caught in the current of their story and unable to break free. She pulls in threads of foreboding, hints at disquiet in some cases (the mother, her history, the careful building of a domestic past she has run back to, in order to escape it), and sets up outright chills in others. The whole feels inevitable - towards the end in particular, as the pieces begin to click into place, as the red herrings fall away - but even so there's always, always the sense that you'll be wrongfooted in a way that makes perfect sense to the story. The relationship between July and September, and the amorphous edges of their identities, mean that as readers we can trust nothing we are told, and we can assume nothing.

This wavering identity and unnamed dread seem to be a particular trope of Johnson's, and she always does it well and I enjoy it hugely.

Anyway - I don't want to say more for fear of spoilers. Just that if you pick up this book expecting more of the excellence that was 'Fen' and 'Everything Under' you will not be disappointed. Nor will you be bored. Johnson is still evolving as a writer, certainly not a one-trick pony, and 'Sisters' is similar enough and different enough to her earlier work to keep me reading.

Just having finished Fen I was delighted to see that Sisters was up for request on NetGalley.

I loved Daisy Johnson's writing style in Fen, the giver of secrets and revealer of ancient mythologies. This continues in Sisters, on the surface a story of an intense sibling relationship and of modern calamities.

September is the oldest of the two sisters, with July coming along less than a year after. September is the dominant personality in the family, July follows on.

September is the builder of tales, mythologies, and games. This leads to some very dark places that July has little choice but to follow.

Exiled to Yorkshire, to Settle House on the coast after an unexplained incident the darkness and claustrophobia of the house and the memories it invokes (it was their father's house) twists and becomes part of the revelations of that incident.

As you tumble through the story you get caught up in the feverish telling of stories, of the mixing of narratives, of being in someones skin and behind their eyes.

Promises are made to be kept and the conclusion brings that around so frighteningly.

Absolutely stunning work, if I was you I would preorder this ready for July and dive in as soon as you get it.

An unsettling book, atmospheric and chilling but not enjoyable for me. Well written but I was glad to get to the end.

July and September are sisters, born 10 months apart but totally inseperable. They have blocked out their depressed mother who seems to avoid contact with them and have their own language, rituals and life seperate from the rest of society. Something very bad has happened in their school in Oxford and their mother moves them up north to the coast to the sanctuary of a rather creepy house belonging to their dead father's sister. The narrative was a bit difficult to navigate at first as he story is told through July's eyes, then third person (almost as if the house is speaking), the mother and then July again. Through this we get an insight into what has been happening. There are some twists in the plot so I won't spoiler. I was really drawn into this book, so if you struggle perservere, it is worth it. I think the co dependent relationship between the sisters is really well described, how the dominant September rules July and how disaster might strike if July follows her own path. vaguely meancing and sinister with some powerful writing that captures the "outsider" feelings of youth.

Johnson's sophomore novel is an intense ride with July and September, two sisters from Oxford who move with their troubled, elusive mother to Yorkshire, to Settle House, a property belonging to their estranged Danish father's sister. One of the beauties of this book is the spare, sparse prose - and the insight readers get into the lives of July and September.

It is clear from the outset that the girls, very close in age, are so very alike in many ways - but that September, the older of the two, controls many things that July does. They ramble around Settle House, doing what they want, when they want, all unbeknownst to their mother, someone who is evidently in pain as she writes about the lives of her daughter, particularly that of September.

Spoiling the plot and the twist would be easy and I am not going to do this. Johnson weaves a tale here which works in different ways: it is fantastical, with July and September living a free life, behaving as they wish; is it also sad, with Johnson clearly stating how bullying affected the girls; it is also thought-provoking in so many ways, specifically towards the end when the novel comes together and all becomes clear. Saying any more at this stage would be damaging to future readers.

I haven't yet read 'Everything Under', Johnson's debut, but it is now on my list - and I am sure this young writer's first book will not disappoint.

Sisters September and July, along with their mother Sheela have moved to Settle House near the cost of the North York Moors, following an incident in Oxford.

The relationship between the sisters is at the focal point of the story. Inseparable to the extent that they isolate themselves from making new friends, and even their mother. September is very much the dominant older sister whose influence over July appears an abusive one. Playing games like, ‘Hide and Seek’ and ‘September Says’, where July carries out various tasks, one’s that at times inflict pain on herself and September. July questions Septembers motives, but certainly looks up to her sister and loves her unconditionally.

Sheela who shares her perspective in part two, appears broken and isolated from her family. The destruction of her relationship with her daughters father, and the isolation from September and July. She is reminiscent of a time when the girls were younger and they were more of a trip than a duo.

The novel concludes with a powerful and unexpected surprise, which to an extent left me feeling almost content with how some of the characters are left. Although in many ways upsetting, it seemed as if the gloom had been almost lifted from their lives.

This books is phenomenal! I haven’t been absorbed by a book like this for years. Daisy Johnson’s writing very much reminds me of Shirley Jackson’s work and the haunting tension both authors seem to master, to make their stories unsettling, dark, in some ways relatable and yet addictive. I now want to read Everything Under by Johnson, and hope for more works such as this!

Like Daisy Johnson's previous two books, this short novel pulls you slowly but very firmly into its world of two isolated and closely aligned teenage sisters, their history and their tragedy. Slightly more firmly linked to a world like our own than Everything Under, her last novel, it is very good on the difficulty involved in trying move from childhood into adulthood and the sisters' hopes, uncertainties and power struggles are nicely mirrored in the book's dream-like and nightmarish sections. At one point she writes of the sisters' mother, 'She had always know that houses are bodies and that her body is a house in more ways than most" and, like Johnson's previous work, the house is an important third character with real effects. I thought this was excellent.

About two thirds of the way through this book I had a revelation. I was completely confused, could not work out what was going on and nothing made sense - but as the book was about teenage girls, this made perfect sense, that was how I felt at 15 and that is how the girls in the book feel. I gave myself a pat on the back and carried on reading with a new understanding of the confusion. .

But then there was a 'surprise reveal' - I had got it completely wrong, so I was back to looking nonplussed and muttering 'what?' Ok, I did get 'it' in the end but it did not feel worth the hours of bafflement. Not for me!

Sisters by Daisy Johnson is a creepy and complex novel exploring the close relationship between teenage sisters July and September. I spent most of the time a bit confused as the book moved between different places and time periods, but I found the viscerally described atmosphere so engaging that I didn't mind. Everything became much clearer by the end of the book. I really related to the distant and depressed mother - not sure what that says about me!

Having enjoyed Everything Under by the same author, I found the descriptions of place to be just as memorable, sinister and gothic. Johnson does not shy away from describing smells and textures to conjure up dank and fetid places. This, together with the disturbing and dysfunctional relationship between the sisters, meant that the book was not exactly fun to read, although I think it was definitely worth the time.

A recommended read for those who like their psychological thrillers to be creepy but literary.

Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for providing a review copy in exchange for honest feedback.