Phoebe and Suze are twelve when they meet in a small coastal town in Oregon, famous for the sea stacks known as the Starfish Sisters, Suze has recently moved there with her father an evangelist preacher and Phoebe visits her grandmother Beryl in summer.

Phoebe and Suze become best friends, they considered themselves sisters, and they share their teenage troubles, hopes and dreams. Suze’s home life is terrible, her father makes her dress in old fashioned clothes and he won’t let her cut her hair, his punishments are extreme and she’s an outsider at school. The girls keep in contact via Beryl, Suze's father wouldn’t approve of her writing to a friend and he won’t let her be in the school play.

Decades later, Suze is a famous actress, she’s starred in movies and on television and she’s attacked out the front of her house in Hollywood Hills by a member of a racial white supremacist sect.

Phoebe is a successful book illustrator and fabric designer, she’s divorced and lives in Beryl's cottage. Her daughter Stephanie has been offered a job in London, Phoebe is dreading her two girls moving overseas and she loves spending time with her granddaughter Jasmine and like she did with Beryl.

Phoebe and Suze had a falling out, Phoebe knows Suze will be struggling from the attack, it will bring up memories of her childhood and living with her father. Phoebe holds out the olive branch t0 Suze and visits her house overlooking blue cove, this means both women have to confront things that happened in their friendship, and both reconnect with men who they knew as teenage girls, Phoebe with Ben and Suze with Joel.


I received a copy of The Starfish Sisters by Barbara O’Neil from Lake Union Publishing and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The dual timeline narrative delves into the two main characters friendship over the years, how it ebbs and flows, both have experienced heartbreak, and Phoebe feels guilty because she kept a secret from Suze and she was jealous.

I really admired Suze’s character, once a broken, shamed teenager and she vowed to stand up for other girls in her position, speak up and use what happened to her to bring about change. Five stars from me, a story about the power of friendship, with age comes wisdom and it’s never too late to make things right. I'm keen to read Ms. O'Neil's previous book, When We Believed in Mermaids and I can see why she's a best selling author.

I really enjoyed Barbara O'Neal's When We Believed in Mermaids and This Place of Wonder, but this one was really disappointing. I pushed through a very slow beginning and thought this would be a Did Not Finish (DNF) for me, but I managed to get through it in 5 days (much longer than it usually takes me to get through a 344-page book). Phoebe and Suze are lifelong best friends who have a love/hate relationship filled with jealousy and resentment. They grew up together in a small coastal town In Oregon as close as sisters, both going on to be successful. Suze overcame an abusive family environment to become a famous actress and Phoebe became an accomplished artist. The secrets they kept from each other wound up undermining their already-fraught and complicated friendship and they had to figure out if they could ever recover. This one is slow and tough to plod through, so I don't recommend it. I hope Barbara O'Neal's next one will be much better. Thanks to #netgalley and #lakeunionpublishing for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you, Netgalley!

I have mixed feelings. I think this story had a lot of potential. The characters were well defined and I loved the idea of a beach setting (which is what drew me to the book), but the story itself was lacking.

Somehow this book managed to be 98% exposition and 2% plot.

That is to say... nothing really happened. It seemed that O'Neal was trying to do too many things in too few pages.

>The dual POVs
>Jumping back and forth in time
>Storytelling and letters
>The abusive, religious zealot father
>The great grandmother
>The bickering then divorcing parents
>The hippies at the house
>The entire Joel (past and present)
>Ben romance
>The LNB attacks
>The pregnancy

Among a number of other plot lines. It made the entire book seem shallow because there wasn't enough on any subject to get invested. Any one of those would have made for a good story, but thrown together, it felt messy.

Wow! I'm sort of speechless at the end of this story. The writing was so good, the story was enticing and it was hard to put down. I enjoyed the dual time line and the diary entries. I was impressed at the depth of both characters and the reality of the religious feelings Suze struggles with towards the end of the book. I liked that both women found their way to love at the end and that they both found their way back to each other. Overall this gave me "Beaches" vibes, which I loved!

But Major child abuse trigger warnings.

Thanks to Netgalley for the advanced copy to read.

A book about friendship and how it changes as we get older. 2 friends coming back together after years apart because one of them was badly hurt and needed to get away to so where she thought she was safe, the house right next to her friend. They work to repair their friendship and finally put everything on the table including the lies they told each other. It was a good book with some twists that I wasn’t expecting and a sweet ending.

The Starfish Sisters is an emotional and beautiful story of friendship. The ups and downs that sometimes can happen in these relationships.

I loved this book and recommend it completely
Thank you Netgalley and publisher. All thoughts and opinions are my own

I became a fan of Barbara O'Neal's when I read her book We Believe in Mermaids. I believe that she does a great job of capturing female relationships/friendships, and The Starfish Sisters was no different.

This book follows the deep friendship (essentially sisterhood) of Phoebe and Suze. Phoebe is a popular artist, and Suze is a well-known actress. Both women have lived a lot of life, enough to know what is important. Both are carrying secrets from the past that can threaten their future friendship.

I loved how O'Neal showed the good and the bad of a friendship. I would rate this four stars only because I feel like her books are formulaic, but I think they present a lot of depth with realistic, likeable characters.

"The Starfish Sisters" by Barbara O'Neal is a touching and complex exploration of female friendship, secrets, and resilience. The story revolves around Phoebe and Suze, who used to be as close as sisters until their shared secrets drove a wedge between them. Now, decades later, Suze, a famous actress seeking refuge, returns to their coastal town, forcing Phoebe to confront the past and the unsaid words between them.

This novel beautifully portrays the intricacies of women's relationships, capturing both the joys and heartaches of life. It highlights the strength and power that women possess, even when faced with difficult choices between healing and survival.

In summary, "The Starfish Sisters" is a heartfelt and multi-layered story that delves into the depths of friendship, making it a compelling read for those who enjoy books that explore the complexities of human connections.

Summer holiday best friends Phoebe and Suze were inseparable until resentment and lies tore them apart at the end of their teens.

They both built their own lives following their childhood dreams - Suze as a successful actress and Phoebe as an artist and illustrator.

Following an attempt on Suze's life, Phoebe tries to reconnect, but the time is not right. Later on they are both back at the coastal town in Oregon where they spent summers as children.

Well-kept secrets come to the surface and yet again test their friendship but by working together they are both stronger - and surrounded by friends.

The Starfish Sisters is an emotional and beautiful story of complicated friendship, how we sometimes get so stuck in our own grief and fail to see the bigger picture - and reach out to those that need us.

This is the story of Phoebe and Suze, who met as young girls and essentially found the sister neither of them had. They grew up in very different lifestyles but were able to develop a very strong bond through summer and holidays together in Oregon, and through shared diary entries.

As adults, Suze is a famous actress, and recovering from a vicious attack. She comes back to the same area of her childhood and gets to spend more time with Phoebe and her granddaughter Jasmine who is struggling with an upcoming move to Europe. This book includes some mystery as Suze is worried that her attackers are still after her. The book also deals with the struggle of various relationships.

A very emotional read, this story captures the intense friendship of two women from childhood through their mature years. I enjoyed the characters and the storyline! Fans of women’s fiction will adore this story!

The Starfish Sisters explores the relationship between two female friends throughout the years. Jealousy, child abuse,, love, both lost and found, are prominent themes. The secrets left unshared stay between them. A nicely paced book, it kept me engaged.

I have read this author's other book and enjoyed them. This one I did not care for. Two friends on the Oregon Coast are reunited after one is savagely beaten at her home in LA. Flash back to when they were children and how their lives were changed by their parents and their friends. Upsetting parts of the story line leads to a conclusion that seems to put everything right.

A second chance friendship. Suze and Phoebe were BFFs until they weren't and went their separate ways. Now Suze is back in their small town and Phoebe is helping her heal. But she's also healing herself, The two of them peel back the onion of their lives and their secrets in this emotional novel, thanks to netgalley for the Arc, A good read.

This book is about the profound but complex connection between Phoebe and Suze, who shared a childhood of long summers and regular weekends in Blue Cove - and just about everything else.

Growing up, Phoebe's grandmother made it a point to look out for Suze, who had no mother to look after her. And the two girls were inseparable for the longest time. Until they weren't. Betrayal at close quarters is a hard thing to understand, let alone forgive.

Suze left Oregon and achieved considerable professional success as an actress while Phoebe stayed on to become an artist, a mother and grandmother. But then Suze is attacked, and while Phoebe is at her bedside, she has mixed feelings about her one-time soul sister's plan to return to Oregon to recuperate.

I love Barbara O'Neal's writing, though some of her books have definitely resonated more with me than others. This one fell somewhere in the middle. The story is engaging, but Phoebe's character was somewhat self-absorbed, and I felt Suze deserved better, given the harrowing things she had been through.

There are secrets and lies aplenty in this story, and a few twists too. O'Neal's signature writing style that combines beauty and adept storytelling is on display.

The Starfish Sisters by Barbara O'Neal delivered a heartrending and beautiful story!
This author is someone I will read no matter what the book is about. I love her writing style, her characters are always realistic and her stories are always so captivating.
I loved connecting with the characters and the vivid descriptions I could literally see and feel everything.
An engaging and heartfelt story.

"I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own."

Thank You NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

Wow. Completely in love with this book!
Phoebe and Suze have been best friends since the age of 12… Living for summers that they could spend together, and school holidays.
Suze dad is a very strict, evangelist, which makes her the weird kid in school.
Phoebe also goes through her trials and tribulations with her parents divorce.
Suze he’s back in town after a horrible attack, that almost killed her… For the first time in a very long time, these two are living in close proximity, and while they are best friends, there are secrets between them that keep each other at arms length… When these secrets are exposed will they be closer than ever or will their friendship be over?

I loved these characters, I loved the then and now chapters… This author has definitely poured her heart and soul into this novel… I think it’s her best one yet

I found the best part of the story is the sisterhood of the two main characters Suze and Phoebe. Although they are not blood they care a great deal for one another, but there is also an underlying feeling that keep coming up and keeps them from being closer; and until those feelings are dealt with they won't be as close as they could be, and that one feeling makes a past situation worse than it needed to be. I always like how Barbara O'Neal's female characters had interesting careers and family lives, and this story is no different. I saw a lot of our current complications in this world in this story and it made me sad that the characters had to deal with it too.
All in All this was a good story about two women coming to terms with the past that was tragic but without it they wouldn't be who they are in the present, but it still upsetting. There is one aspect I love in this story and that is the both characters find love again, Suze has love returned from one that is was supposedly lost but wasn't and Phobe had someone right there all this time and couldn't recognize it, but once they find love it, it is someone they want to spend their whole life with. Its that love between Suze and Phobe that keep each other strong and there when they need someone.

I want to thank Lake Union Publishing and NetGalley for an advance copy of a story about sisterhood in all forms.

This was a very well-written book that kept me reading. The setting, the relationships, the feelings the main characters experienced, everything was so clearly expressed that I felt like I was there. There was pain, love, joy, sadness, loss, beauty, grief and connection. I highly recommend this book and this author.

4.5 Stars

This story will break your heart and then put it back together even better than before! It’s the story of family— those that we are born into and those that we find along the way. It’s also the story of two friends, and the mistakes that they make along the way to growing up. Ultimately, it’s about forgiveness and redemption. It’s also a wake-up call to those who claim to follow Jesus, but let hate instead of love guide them. Phoebe and Suze meet each other when they are pre-teens and this story follows them through flashbacks and journal entries of milestone events that shape and create their lives. When your whole world is ahead of you, you can dream big; some dreams come true, while others change and take a different form.

This story touched my heart, and has an important message in it for everyone. It’s never too late to let go of the past.