Review: Three Story House by Courtney Miller Santo

Three Story House

by Courtney Miller Santo

Publisher: William Morrow

Pages: 416

Format: ARC

Buy the Book: Amazon

Goodreads:  Renovating an historic Memphis house together, three cousins discover that their spectacular failures in love, career, and family provide the foundation for their future happiness in this warm and poignant novel from the author of The Roots of the Olive Tree that is reminiscent of The Postmistress, The Secret Life of Bees, and Kristin Hannah’s novels.

Nearing thirty and trying to avoid the inescapable fact that they have failed to live up to everyone’s expectations and their own aspirations, cousins and childhood best friends Lizzie, Elyse, and Isobel seek respite in an oddly-shaped, three-story house that sits on a bluff sixty feet above the Mississippi.

As they work to restore the almost condemned house, each woman faces uncomfortable truths about their own failings. Lizzie seeks answers to a long-held family secret about her father in her grandmother’s jumble of mementos and the home’s hidden spaces. Elyse’s obsession with an old flame leads her to a harrowing mistake that threatens to destroy her sister’s wedding, and Isobel’s quest for celebrity tempts her to betray confidences in ways that would irreparably damage her two cousins.


Kritters Thoughts:  Three cousins choose to move to a very old home in Memphis to fix it up and help each other get all of their lives back on a better track.  They each are having some speed bumps in life, so this is the perfect pause and reset.

Divided into three parts to allow for each cousin to tell their own story, I loved how the full story kept moving as they each took turns to tell their parts, it was so different.  I loved how the chapters that took the reader back into the past for a supporting story were clearly labeled and didn't add any sort of confusion.  I can't even pick a favorite cousin because they were so perfectly different that each was so unique that I liked them for their own story.  

As my second book that I have read by Courtney Miller Santo and I have loved how both make families a central focus over the love relationships in women's lives, it is nice to read about the eccentricities of women's familial relationships.  If you are in need of a fantastic book that explores what defines family and to see three female cousins learn how they can really impact each other, then this should be the next book you read.


Rating: absolutely loved it and want a sequel

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from TLC Book Tours.  I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.