Three Story House by Courtney Miller Santo

Hi, all! Today I'm a stop on the TLC book tour for Courtney Miller Santo's latest, Three Story House.

Spite House, a historic landmark in Memphis, Tennessee and the house where Lizzie spent much of her childhood, has fallen into grave disrepair. In the time since her grandmother passed away the house was apparently abandoned and left to rot. Now the city has stepped in and Lizzie and her mother are in danger of losing it unless it can be fixed to code. Enter Lizzie's cousins Elyse and Isobel. 

Best of friends since Lizzie's mother married into the family, the three girls are as close as siblings. Together they'll work to fix Spite House and uncover its secrets. But the renovations also offer each of them a chance to fix their own lives as well. Lizzie, who dreams of a chance at the Olympics while recovering from her latest surgery hopes the house will finally give her the opportunity to learn about her father. Elyse is using Spite House as a chance to escape her sister's looming marriage - a marriage to the man Elyse has been in love with much of her own life. And Isobel has always dreamed of recapturing the attention and celebrity she had as a child. For her Spite House might prove to be exactly what she's looking for. 

As with her debut, The Roots of the Olive Tree, Courtney Miller Santo once again offers up something of a family saga. This time it's one year in the life of three cousins, each on the brink of thirty and each unsure what to do next in life.

The book is split into three sections, each piece told from one of the girls' viewpoints. This is a format I usually enjoy quite a bit but I'm not sure that it was the best option here in Three Story House. First, the house itself was of the most interest to me. Spite House - there's a story there! Unfortunately it's pushed to the background and only generally glossed over. The girls never really became fully developed or fleshed out either. Sadly I never really felt like I was seeing anything beyond their surface stories - I never felt like I was really getting to know any of them and ended up having quite a hard time connecting with them and becoming invested in their stories.

To see more stops on the tour be sure to check out the official TLC tour page here.

For more on Courtney and her work you can visit her website here. You can also like her on Facebook and follow her on Twitter.