On paper this looked like the perfect book for me. I love family drama, I love character driven stories. I love multigenerational stories. However, this just fell flat for me. I was bored through most of it. I think the biggest problem was I just never connected with the characters. It wasn't until I finished this book that I realized this was written by the author of When We Believed in Mermaids which also did not work for me.

I enjoyed many aspects of this book. It’s about family and the sacrifices we sometimes have to make for them. The female characters in this book are all strong women who know what they want but will have to struggle to get it. This story has romance and intrigue set against a back drop of art and country/folk music. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

I loved some of this author's other books and I think she can write amazingly in depth sister relationships. My expectations were high with this one, but unfortunately it fell flat. There were three different storylines and character POVs and while all had promise, I didn't really feel engaged in any of them and I wasn't really connected to any of the characters. Throughout most of the story, Sam was quite mean to Willow and Willow just took it. I wanted more of an exploration of the conflict between the two of them, but I didn't really get that until the end of the book and it just wasn't enough for me. This was an okay read, but I wanted more from it.

more of a 3.5 but rounding up.
this one took me over a month to read, but that's a me/world problem and not the book. i loved her mermaids book, didn't love this one as much, but it was still very good. i do think there was a bit too much going on, storyline wise, so none of them could be fully developed - at least, not to my liking. i would mostly recommend it, it was good but not outstanding and likely not one i will remember a couple months from now - not in a mean way, just in a... life way.

have read almost all of Barbara O'Neals books over the years and have reviewed a couple of them for book tours on the blog. She's an author I like for when I want something not too heavy but still good story telling about life, family drama, romance and second chances and creates great characters that while not always initially likable, having you rooting for them by the end of the book. Write My Name Across the Sky follows these same elements and is set in New York City, which almost is a supporting character itself. Willow Rose is a talented violin player whose first album failed and she was kicked out the Los Angeles house of the man who helped her get the contract. She's returned to New York to house-sit for her Aunt Gloria Rose, once a flight attendant and now a popular Instagram influencer in her 70s. Gloria left her glamorous life flying the globe to care for Willow and her older half-sister, Samantha, when their rock star mother, Billie Rose, died from an overdose when the girls were young. Sam is a video game designer whose company is struggling since her relationship with her business partner and best friend Asher has deteriorated since a fateful weekend at a friend's wedding. Willow and Sam have a fractious relationship as Sam struggles with people and holding in her simmering anger--with Willow being a prime target for her resentment since Sam's father left when of Billie's affair with a drummer resulted in her younger sister's birth. Gloria isn't going on a simple trip though, her involvement in her former lover's art forgery and theft ring is coming to light and so she is planning on fleeing before the FBI catches up with her.

The story is told from each woman's perspective, as each tries to figure out their next steps in life and in love. It was easiest to like Gloria and Willow as Sam, who I believe falls somewhere on the Autism spectrum spends most of the time being disagreeable, however I grew to sympathize and even like her. The romances for the sisters worked, although not at too deep level as there is a lot of story for 366 pages to cover. I loved the NYC setting and all of the art, photography, music, plants, and general creativity woven into the pages. Although the ending was a little predictable, the story was enjoyable and kept me turning the pages. This is a great book to curl up with on a rainy cool day and maybe enjoy with a cup of tea or better yet, a cup of good creamy tomato soup.

This is my first book read by this author (I own others but haven't read them yet) and I am so impressed with how she makes the characters come to life for the reader!
I loved each story told by Gloria (the aunt), Willow, the younger sister, and Sam, the older sister. They are unique, three-dimensional characters who take us on a journey of their own self-discovery, the challenges they face, and how they support (and yes, sometimes tear apart!) each other along the way. They are tied together by Billie, the infamous mother of Willow and Sam who died too young, leaving damage and heartache behind for her sister and daughters, but also a treasured, unique NYC apartment that also helps bring the three characters together.
By the time I was finished, I swear I could have identified these characters if I passed them on the street in NYC, that's how real they felt to me!
Thanks so much to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me a copy of this great story.

This was a very enjoyable read about an aunt and the two nieces that she raised. The three women each have a different storyline but they are woven together. The characters are very independent and realistic. and easy to engage with. The story is beautifully written.
Many thanks to Lake Union Publishing and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

Another wonderful read from a truly prolific author who understands the human experience. She truly never fails to create a story that draws you in and keeps you in your seat. It’s a story about women, their struggles, their life, love and connection and how they move forward. This story brings us into the world of Gloria, a seventy’ish influencer who is living her best life until her past comes calling. She raised Samantha and Willow after the loss of their own mother. Each woman is at somewhat of a crossroads. This is a journey long side of them trying to figure it all out. Its engaging and at its core about love and family. A truly wonderful read.

I finished Barbara O’Neal’s WRITE MY NAME ACROSS THE SKY with a full heart. Not only was she able to create three intriguing, strong, and flawed characters, O’Neal was also able to weave together all three points of view seamlessly. Gloria, Sam, and Willow all had their own stories, challenges, and emotional baggage, but they also had each other, no matter what. Sometimes they just needed to remember that, especially Sam. All three women were at a crossroads in life, needing reevaluate and make difficult decisions about the future.
I enjoyed delving into each woman’s life: joys, fears, triumphs, failures, insecurities, and loves. O’Neal created three relatable, multi-dimensional characters and a story that hooked me from the first page.
Thanks to the publisher for the opportunity to read an advanced copy of the novel. All opinions are my own and freely given.
#WriteMyNameAcrosstheSky #BarbaraONeal #LakeUnionPublishing

Thank you to the author and publisher for providing me with a digital ARC of this title via Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

Oh I love this author and am so grateful for the opportunity to read her newest. I recently found her work after reading a friends review of When We Believed in Mermaids which I got from my library. I devoured it in 2 days and then immediately started looking for more books by O'Neal. She is a great storyteller and creates depth and interest in her characters. I get so immersed in their stories and feel like I am traveling along with them on their journey. Write My Name Across the Sky is about 2 sisters with a famous singer mother who died of an overdose. The sisters were then raised by their aunt, a flight attendant who chose her profession and independence over love. The sisters are adults now and are brought back together when Willow returns from LA to housesit for their aunt G, Sam comes close to dying from meningitis, and Gloria is facing arrest for her involvement in transporting stolen and forged art decades earlier. I did not want to put the book down. I had to see what happened in each story and would they find a way to get closer as sisters. Great writing, great characters, enjoyable book to escape in.

This book had a lot of potential that was never fully realized. Individually all three characters had really interesting storylines but they did not fully come together and mesh for me. If the book focused on the aunts whole story and had the nieces in the background I would have enjoyed it much more. It was lacking in character development and the book felt like three different ideas that the author tried to jam into one.

Write My Name Across the Sky  is the story of two sisters, who have had a rather challenging upbringing. Both of them are at tough points in their lives now.

Sam is a creator of video games, but her company is failing and she has fallen out with her best friend Asher. She seems to be a little bit of a loner and really when it comes to some people in her life, has a very sharp tongue that wounds the chosen recipient.

Willow is a talented musician but her life is down in the doldrums as well. She is a gentle, caring person and I liked her. 

Gloria their aunt has looked out for the two and lives in the apartment their mother bought from her days of music fame. She loved being a world traveller but some involvement in an art scam years back seems to be catching up with her.

It took me a little while to get engaged with their lives but very soon I was very involved and wanting to know what would happen to them. And I loved that New York apartment. At the end I think prickly Sam turned into someone I was cheering on.

A warm hearted story of sisters and their aunt, the past catching up with each and a new and better future possible. I really liked the choice of facing up to past mistakes and moving on.

Write My Name Across The Sky is a unique and heartwarming story about family, friends and relationships in a world of art, music and video games.
Two generations of women at a crossroads in their lives are struggling with consequences over the decisions they have made in the past.
Author Barbara O'Neal's characters, storyline and writing is superb.
Highly Recommended!

Thank you to NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for an arc of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

A story about two sisters Sam and Willow, quite contrary to each other, and the influencer aunt, Gloria, who raised them.

A brilliant book, I loved reading about the multi generational girls who has their own problems in life brought on by their ambitions and success, insecurities and fear. Everything seemed real to me.

I was quickly pulled into their story, as their hopes and dreams called to me. I loved that my first book by author Barbara O’Neil was so captivating.

A lot of emotions were seeped into the words which showed the power of the author’s writing. I liked how the subplots were merged together seamlessly.

This book kept me hooked the whole afternoon in its pages with complex characters, emotional scenes, and engaging prose. Simply beautiful.

Two sisters Willow, a folk musician and Sam, a video game executive and producer are as different in temperament as they are in looks. They are actually step sisters but have always been a family despite their differences and despite their sisterly fights. Their mother, Billie was a famous rock star who died of a drug overdose. Gloria their Aunt stepped in to raise the girls and has been a constant in life; looking after them when Billie dies. Gloria was an air hostess and has a secret from her past that has now become a major problem.
I loved the family relationship between all three characters and how each chapter was written in their voice and their perspective.
There is drama, romance, intrigue and above all how families live and deal with their relationships and the choice they make. A great weekend read.

This is the story of two pairs of sisters all of whom were, in their own ways, trailblazers. Sam and Willow are in their late 30s when this story opens. Sam was one of the first women to head her own gaming company, and one of the first to design action/adventure games specifically intended to appeal to girls. While her company was an “overnight” success 20 years ago, in internet time, 20 years is a century, and her company is floundering.

Her sister Willow is a musician, a violinist who’s most recent solo album tanked. Sank without a trace, taking her boyfriend, her current home and pretty much everything she owned down with it. Willow is a folk/electronica violinist with a unique sound who just hasn’t found the right audience. But at 35, her time couch-surfing and hoping for a big break is running out.

Gloria and her sister Billie came of age in the so-called “Swinging 60s”. Gloria was a stewardess for TWA, back in the days of Coffee, Tea or Me, when stewardesses were expected to tolerate getting groped on every flight in return for the opportunity to visit exotic places for multi-day layovers back when international travel was an expensive novelty and not an every-hour-on-the-hour occurrence.

Bille was a rock musician in the 1960s and 70s, said to be a combination of Joan Jett and Janis Joplin. Unfortunately Billie followed Janis’ trajectory all the way down to an early death, leaving her sister Gloria to raise the daughters she left behind – not that she was all that present when she was alive.

And Billie’s ghost still haunts them all when this story begins. And not just because Gloria is still living in the luxury New York apartment that Billie bought with the royalties from her first album, the place where Gloria raised her girls to adulthood and left them with a yearning to blaze their own trails.

But they’re both failing when this story begins, while Gloria is faced with the sudden failure of the facade she has been maintaining for over 50 years. The man she has loved for all of those years has finally been caught. By Interpol. Suddenly, the biggest of her youthful sins looks like it’s either going to send her on the run or land her in jail for the rest of her life.

Escape Rating A-: Let me get this out of the way first, because it drove me crazy. If the title of the book is giving you an earworm you can’t quite place, it’s because it IS a line in a song, just not the title and not exactly word for word. In the 1971 song by the Stylistics, it went “Write YOUR name across the sky…” but Billie Thorne turned it around because she’d learned from both her mother and her sister not to let anyone else define or restrict her life. Which didn’t stop the world from doing it anyway.

Like the two previous books by this author that I have read, The Art of Inheriting Secrets and When We Believed in Mermaids, this is a story about the past crashing headlong into the present, pushing all of the characters to remember people and events that they have forced into the background of their minds and hearts, until their memories crash into the same heartbreaking epiphany and they’re all finally able to move forward.

I liked this one just a tiny bit better than the previous books, although I certainly liked both of them quite a lot. But the difference in this one was the character of Gloria, who represents a different generation and an entirely different perspective on the people and events that shaped all of their lives. Because through Gloria’s memories we’re allowed to see the late Billie Thorne as she was, through the eyes of someone who was an adult at the time, and not just through the memories of the childhoods that she scarred.

This is also explicitly not a romance, although there are romances in it, and that includes 74-year-old Gloria. For both Gloria and Sam, it’s a second chance at romance, while Willow puts herself and her music first, and finds love as the reward.

As much as the story’s focus is on Sam and Willow, it was Gloria’s story that held my attention. As much as all three women are at crisis points in their lives, it was Gloria’s that brought me the most “feels”, probably because I’m closer to her age than to either of her nieces. I loved that Gloria is happy with the career she had, and has found a second act through her plants and her friends and her instagram feed and followers, because I know how that goes. At the same time, while she doesn’t handle the crisis she is faced with terribly well for most of the story, it was all too easy to slip inside her feelings of desperation, her desire to protect the ones she loves, and her acknowledgement that the long ago events that brought her to this pass were of her own making.

I certainly liked the way that all three of these women’s stories resolved themselves. Gloria faced the demons of her past. Sam found a way to silence the demons inside her head, or at least learned to stop letting them spill out of her mouth. And Willow, in learning from the stories of her mother AND her sister, played her way to the top of the world. A feel good ending all around that I hope will bring as big a smile to other readers’ faces as it did mine.

Write My Name Across the Sky is the first book I have read by Barbara O'Neal and I loved it! Gloria is in her seventies. She is a former flight attendant who years ago was involved in transporting some artwork from one place to another knowing this could be dangerous and one day get her in trouble. She has raised her two nieces Sam and Willow in a fantastic New York City apartment since their mother passed away. Sam and Willow have never gotten along mainly due to Sam's jealousy of her younger sister. All three of these women are strong and independent and are at a crossroads in their lives I loved seeing them come together as a family when they needed each other the most. A great book!

Barbara O'Neal is a new author to me and I have to say I love her writing. This book was so good. It was hard to put down. I loved the characters, knowing in several cases this is exactly how sisters act. The ending was quite good - so glad that the sisters were able achieve their goals and that Aunt G was back with the love of her life.

This was just ok for me, it didn’t resonate with me like WE BELIEVED IN MERMAIDS did. I didn’t really connect with any characters or the storyline. With the multiple storylines I didn’t get the depth i was looking for.

Many thanks to Author Barbara O'Neal, Lake Union Publishing and NetGalley for the ARC of this book!.
This is my honest opinion.

This is the story of Gloria, Willow and Sam, Three women who seem to lead picture perfect lives. Gloria is an older Instagram influencer after retiring from years of being an airline attendant and jet-setting across the globe. Willow and Sam are her nieces, whom she helped raise after her famous singer of a sister died of an overdose. Willow is a violinist, struggling to make it, and struggling for her independence. Sam is a genius game programmer whose life seems to be in a rut.

As usual, Ms. O'Neal slowly reveals to us that things are not as they seem and life is quite complicated.
The story runs deep and the characters are layered and I really felt for them. Their pain was tangible and their actions (and mistakes) were relatable.

This was an emotional ride.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book.