Sisters of heart and snow

3.5 stars, rounded up to 4. I really enjoyed the realistic sisterly dynamics between Rachel and Drew and enjoyed watching their bumpy road towards renewed closeness. The flashbacks to 12th century Japan and the female warrior Tomoe were fascinating, but I thought that the lessons the sisters learned were a little too simplistic (e.g. Tomoe was brave, so I should be brave too). The romance for Drew was under-developed and unconvincing. But if you take out the love story and the flashbacks, you have at heart a story of mothers, daughters, and sisters, and the hurt and healing they can inflict on each other. I liked Dilloway's previous book, The Care and Handling of Roses with Thorns more than this one, but overall I find her work to be above average, intelligent women's fiction.