THREE WISHES

Meet the Kettle sisters: 33-year-old triplets.

Gemma, Cat, and Lynne had the childhood from hell, thanks to their battling parents, and they still haven’t decided what they want to be when they grow up—if they grow up. They haven’t forgiven Mum and Dad and they can’t forget, for example, their sixth birthday party, when their father lit a firecracker and blew his finger off (it was preserved in Formaldehyde as a gruesome memento of the occasion). How ironic: it was his ring finger—an apt symbol of an explosive marriage. Some years later, after their parents’ divorce, the sisters leave home to confront hard truths about life and love. Family secrets and garden-variety troubles are trotted out in no particular order: Mum’s miscarriage. Frail but feisty granny. Unfaithful husbands and useless boyfriends. Happy ending? Oh, why not.

Sneering tone and choppy style mar this first novel, set in Sydney, from Australian author Moriarty.