What if your own family history turns out to be a terrifying lie? Every family has its story, and this one’s deadly. Two sisters. One secret. And a race against time to find the explosive truth in this twisty and captivating thriller by USA Today bestselling author Hank Phillippi Ryan.
Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Mother Daughter Sister Stranger by Hank Phillippi Ryan, which releases on September 1st 2026.
The sole survivors of the fiery plane crash that killed their parents, Eliza Ramsey and her sister Bea share an unbreakable bond. But now, on the eleventh anniversary of the tragedy, Bea fails to retrieve her pre-teen daughter from a sleepover at Eliza’s.
Eliza knows her sister would never leave her precious Piper behind, and fears the worst. But did Bea plan her own disappearance?
The Ramseys’ lives have already crashed and burned once. Now, Eliza discovers she’s the only one who can protect her niece from the horrifying legacy of her family’s sinister history. Together, the two must prevent their lives from going up in flames once again.
A missing mother. Her frightened daughter. And a sister on a desperate search for a happy ending. But someone knows the deadly key to their shared past, and won’t stop until they’ve written a devastating final chapter. Mother, daughter, sister—stranger.
EXCERPT
CHAPTER 12
The sugar maple in our backyard—Bea’s backyard—is eleven years older than it was the last time I happily lived here. I stand at the base of the trunk, my feet on the well-kept grass, wishing I had sneakers instead of my cemetery flats. Hands on hips, I look up, measuring the distance from ground to lowest branch, the distance to a higher branch, the distance from branch to rooftop, the span of flat shingled roof to the bedroom window. I can’t break down a door, so a window is my only shot.
“Can you get up there?” Piper sounds dubious.
Someone watching would think we looked like the most unlikely burglars in the universe, both in our prim little outfits, and Piper holding the iron lever from my flat-tire jack.
“I’ve done it a million times.”
“But now you’re older,” she says. “I should go.”
“Forget about it, Pipe. Let me think.” It’s not only about the physicality of the climb, but apprehension of what I’ll find inside.
If Bea has security cameras, great, let them watch me. I keep thinking I should go to the police station, but I’m here now. I’ve convinced myself, even though I pray it’s ridiculous, that something is really wrong in there. The longer I wait or procrastinate or follow rules, the longer it is before we know what.
I puff out a breath, feeling the steamy afternoon against my skin, a sheen of humidity on my face. Where are you, Bea?
She might be unconscious at the bottom of the stairs, or bleeding out on the kitchen floor. She might have invited a guest who then hurt her or killed her or robbed her or left her tied up. A stranger could have knocked on the door, and when she opened it—or it might have been someone she knew. Someone she just divorced. Who has his own key. And is not actually in Japan.
Inside this house could be a disaster, or chaos, or an emergency, or death
And I am standing here with a little girl whose future is in the balance.
“It’s your own house,” I say out loud. “So it’s fine.” I make a mental plan, and recognize the gap. “Where’s the alarm keypad, Piper? To put in the code?”
“In the kitchen by the microwave,” she says. “It looks like an iPad.”
“And it’s five two two seven.”
“Like our initials, Kyle, Bea, and Piper. The A in ‘and’ is the two.”
“Five two two seven,” I repeat. “Kyle, Bea, and, Piper. Why do you call him Kyle, anyway?”
“Because he doesn’t want to be my father anymore,” she says.
“Of course he does.” I turn, looking at her square-on for a beat. It’s heartbreaking, her defensiveness about Kyle. Parents. An irresistible force. “Nothing can change that.”
“He could. But he went away.”
“Let’s see if we can get in, okay?” I’m brazenly changing the subject. A person can only put out so many fires at once. “Here I go.”
I puff out a breath again, assessing the climb, not liking this idea. And then I see the basement window. I mentally compare the width of that narrow pane of glass with the circumference of my head. The window is surrounded by a well filled with tiny bits of gravel.
“Give me that jack thing,” I say to Piper.
“Why?”
“Stand over here.” I scoot her along, park her by the arborvitaes. I don’t want her hit by shattering glass. “Don’t move. Hold my blazer. I’m going in through the basement window.”
“Maybe I should go. I’m littler.”
In a happier universe, Piper has a good idea. But not with the haunting prospect of what she might find inside, what she might be the first to see. The poor child has had enough trauma, I don’t need to add to it.
“No way,” I say. “Stand right where you are.”
“But can you fit? The window is kinda small.”
“Shush. Yes. I can fit.”
If nothing has changed, the basement window is not too high off the floor. It’ll depend on the angles, and the distance, and whether I can ease myself down and touch without losing my grip, falling onto the concrete floor, hitting it with my knees and breaking my nose and all my teeth. Or my back. I erase that picture from my brain. I can do this. I have to do this.
“I’m recording it on my phone,” Piper says. “I love to record. It’ll be cool.”
I have never broken a window in my life, and I don’t know how hard you have to swing to smash it.
We’ll soon find out.
“Five two two seven,” Piper calls out.
Excerpted from Mother Daughter Sister Stranger, by Hank Phillippi Ryan. Minotaur Books, 2026. Reprinted with permission.
