Like sides of a triangle or square, sisters are in ways inconceivable without each other. In the lives of three pairs of sisters in Luanne Rice's novel, relationship and loss possess a kind of primal force. Private school teacher Maggie Shaw returns to Newport Academy after the death of both her husband and eldest daughter, but it is a deep breach from the past that beckons her toward resolution. For Beck, her teenage daughter, the sudden move to the New England boarding school only heightened the alienation caused by her older sister's death. She retreats into the more perfect world of mathematics. These and other female characters in The Geometry of Sisters must cope with problems and uncertainties simmering beneath the seemingly tranquil world of Newport's quiet campus. A powerful ensemble novel.