Excerpt from Winter Sisters by Robin Oliveira, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

In their classroom at the Van Zandt Grammar School, Emma and Claire were seated two rows apart. They had been gazing out the windows at the snow, which was beginning to turn heavier, but Emma, the oldest, sighed and exchanged a despairing glance with Claire before turning her attention back to their teacher, a recent graduate of the State Normal School, who was teaching some complicated math to the older students. Claire studied Emma from the corner of her eye. It pleased Claire that people said they looked alike, with their cascades of copper hair and bright blue eyes, but that was where their resemblance ended, Claire believed. Emma was so much more clever that she was. As Emma leaned over her paper to solve a raft of division problems, Claire pretended to do the same, but instead she was secretly thinking about the party that night at the Stipps'.

Five long blocks away, Bonnie was contemplating the party, too. It was their annual celebration of the opening of her shop. This year was the sixth, and it was she who ought to be hosting since Amelia Sutter was away with Elizabeth in Paris, but Mary Stipp had insisted on continuing the annual tradition of hosting the party at their home, even in the absence of her mother and niece. It was Amelia who had provided the initial funds. Bonnie had repaid her debt long ago, but the party had become a celebration not only of Amelia's generosity, but of the families' long friendship, close ties, and remade lives. And then there was the fact that Mary Sutter Stipp had delivered both Emma and Claire, and one of her babies from Jake, who had died. Their tight bonds could never be broken.

Outside, the light dimmed as the fluffy flakes turned beady and began to pour from the sky. Casting a wary eye toward the window, Bonnie resolved to leave her shop earlier than she usually did to pick up the cake at Mariano's Bakery for tonight, but she wasn't really worried. It was March, after all, nearly spring. The snow had to let up soon. And she had work to do. She finished dusting her showcase and arranging her worktable, permitting herself a small smile of self-congratulation as she sat down to put the last touches on the hat she had been decorating for her best customer, Viola Van der Veer, the wife of Gerritt Van der Veer, David's employer and the richest man in Albany. Not that long ago-was it really twenty years?-Bonnie had been an ignorant farm girl, and now she was making hats for a woman whose patronage had ensured her success, because when Viola Van der Veer wanted something, the rest of Albany society did, too, not so much out of affection for her, but as a mark of financial equality. That collective desire had provided for, among other things, the excess funds to purchase the cherished awning. Despite the snow, Bonnie expected that Mrs. Van der Veer might stop in today, as she often did, to chat with her as she worked. The society woman's loneliness had come as a revelation, especially given Mrs. Van der Veer's standing in the community, which recently Bonnie had learned Mrs. Van der Veer considered more a chore than a position she prized. Mostly, Bonnie was honored to be the recipient of Mrs. Van der Veer's sometimes mournful confidences, and more than once she had offered the tearful woman her shoulder.

The new wide-brimmed garden hat, a style that would set to advantage Mrs. Van der Veer's tiny figure, was already laden with white egret plumage and exuberant silk peonies. Bonnie marveled at how her customers seemed oblivious of her tricks. All she had to do was juxtapose a pair of complementary colors, offer the surprise of a new pattern, or more importantly, disclose which of a client's friends-or enemies-had purchased a far superior quality of velvet, and the sale was done. In Albany society, Bonnie had learned, superiority mattered. Hard won, reaped with unsheathed claws and an enigmatic smile in ballrooms and dining rooms across the city, who was who was the business of those women, and if she, a former farm girl, provided ammunition to the struggle, then all the better. She paused and took stock. The addition of a hummingbird would finish the hat well. It was an embellishment that Viola Van der Veer loved, and Bonnie often finished her hats with that signature detail. Now she tested first one, then another of the featherlight birds, setting them in a tiny nest of straw, choosing finally a ruby-throated one, its wings aflight.

Excerpted from Winter Sisters by Robin Oliveira. Copyright © 2018 by Robin Oliveira. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.