In the summer of 1976, three exceptionally different sisters begin walking their individual paths. Schmellda, the eldest daughter, launches into her personal tale of family and self-discovery. Setting out on her own for the first time in her life, she remains a frumpy self-appointed mother hen to her younger sisters.
Sorina is her stunning and stuttering middle sibling venturing out slowly in search of her dreams. The youngest, Esmeralda, is an outspoken, non-filtered, sharp-tongued fireball ready to fly form the nest. Their parents have provided a safely nurtured life for the three. It is in this happy environment that an unimaginable spiral of events begins that will change all their lives forever.
The girls compete, take road trips, and go to camp. They get makeovers, follow their hearts, and fall in love. Over the months, the sisters cross paths and with with each other and encounter a menagerie of misfits, loners, losers, and dreamers, marking an adventure like no other. Their wry humor, hopes,and fledging philosophies take them, and you to places never imagined.
J. Keeling
A Real Page-turner!
THE LAPONE SISTERS does indeed carry you along for a great ride. I read it fast becasue I was always eager to see what happened next. I love the hilarious plot and the absurdity throughout!
Amazon Customer
Will there be a sequel?
Reviewed in the United States on September 18, 2022
What an awesome first novel! Two chapters in, I recommended it to my book club in Nashville. It is relatable for anyone especially with 2 sisters like myself. Easy reading and a page turner because the characters are so likeable, you want to know what happens next. Barry is an excellent writer and very descriptive with his prose. I hope he will consider a sequel because we all want to know what happens next to these interesting gals!
So much fun!
This is a delightful and imaginative read; so light-hearted as well as refreshing. I wish I could meet these sisters. Also, the invention in the story is unimaginable but hysterical. Enjoy!
Cynthia M.
A wonderful ride!!!!!!
I loved it!!!!!!
The writing is so good.....it pulled me right in from the beginning and I enjoyed every page! The story is very entertaining and complicated!! By the end I was completely entralled with everyone!! Barry does know how to bring his thoughts to life!!!! His descriptive talent is wonderful!!!! Don't miss this one!!!!!!!
GreenfishSisters...Living LifeWhat a fun and uplifting story! Reading about daily lives and adventures of these three sisters made me laugh. Coming of age in 1976, I wonder what shenanigans they'd be getting in to now. K. Green
John L.A journey with twists and turns down paths you don't expect. The Lapone Sisters, the story takes you on a unique family journey with twists and turns down paths you don't expect. The author is excellent at vividly depicting pleasant times not long ago. You will definitely chuckle and smile as The Lapone Sisters story unfolds. A must read.
Brian Harnett
Engaging story telling
Reviewed in the United States on Sept.4th, 2022
Barry Wilker's book draws you into the character's lives and relationships with each other as they grow into adulthood. It is very well written with humor throughout. Barry's attention to detail makes you feel that you can envision the people, place, and situations he carefully describes. In addition, there are many positive messages in the story telling which simply makes you smile as you go from chapter to chapter.
Martha Funke
I wish I was related
Barry Wilker has written a wonderful read full of graphic descriptions of time and place. The Lapones are a little quirky, and yet as normal as a Nashville country music song. Don't tell me how it ends- I am enjoying our time together too much!
EdE
Good read, I felt like I was there listening and observing.
I agree with the last sentence. Yes, I enjoyed the ride. Great galloping ponies! - Read the book, you'll understand. The Lapone Sisters was a very good, fun and interesting, light easy-to-read story. I felt that I was invited to be included in their family, their exterior lives, and privy to their inner thoughts. There were a few chuckles, giggles, and wow! moments. This whole story is not just about the sisters, their diverse personalities, and where life's path led them, but the people they met along the way were also there contributing to their eventural ending of the story. There was some good detail alluding to the authors's previous life of Interior Designer, and the same with all the places. The book is well written and captivating - and, quite an imagination, my friend. Barb
Beth Moore
Schmellda, Sorina, Esmerelda
The old saying you may not remember what someone saysto you but you do rememberthe way they make you feel applies to The Lapone Sisters. This is a book that makes you feel great. It's funny, filled with memorable characters, vivid descriptions, and hilarious events. Beth Moore
Celebrated interior designer and Nashville native Barry Wilker enters the ranks of published novelists with the release of his debut novel, The Lapone Sisters. Published by Simon & Schuster publishing partner Archway Publishing, The Lapone Sisters is now available nationwide.
A smart, seamless coming-of-age debut novel centered on the lives of three sisters, The Lapone Sisters is a thoughtful and thought-provoking tale that unfolds against the backdrop of a simpler time and place. In The Lapone Sisters, Wilker introduces the dazzling-and decidedly different-Lapone sisters: Schmellda, Sorina, and Esmerelda. Wildly disparate, wholly entertaining, and mesmerizingly comical, these three sisters are swept up in a whirlwind of adventure when each begins to chart a course towards discovering purpose, meaning, and direction.
About The Lapone Sisters: In the summer of 1976, three exceedingly different sisters will launch a journey like no other when each begins the task of uncovering her individual course in the world. Schmellda, the eldest daughter, is a frumpy, self-appointed mother hen cautiously setting out on her own for the first time in her life. Middle sister Sorina is a stunning-and stuttering-beauty tentatively venturing out in search of her dreams. Bold youngest sister Esmerelda is an outspoken, sharp-tongued, unfiltered fireball ready to catapult from the nest.
Sue Michlovitz
Love it!! ❤️ A wonderful multidimensional travel through characters and the imaginative mind of Barry Wilker.
We are excited to announce that the book The Lapone Sisters has won the Bronze/3rd Place award in the Debut Author category! Congratulations! Our award program has steadily grown in the quality and number of nominations, and this year we had so many incredible books entered – congratulations are in order for your book rising to the top of that huge stack of nominations!
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Again, congratulations on your win!
Dear Reader, Love, Barry Wilker
Dear Reader…
I have been asked to write to you about my new novel, The Lapone Sisters. I think it will be fun to let you in on all the why’s, how’s, and what’s of the story, and the reasons that led to my final decision to put pen to paper . . . or to be honest, fingers to keyboard.
Let me first tell you a little about myself. I am a retired interior designer. For most of my career, I worked on residential design for homes from coast to coast. I primarily worked on larger homes but always made the time for smaller jobs. I worked with a myriad of clients, some with budgets and some without where the sky was the limit. Each new job felt like the start of a guessing game. We had to get to know each other. I needed to get a perspective of a new prospect’s lifestyle, their attitudes toward life, their personal tastes and interests. After a week or two in conversations we would decide if our ideas and objectives aligned and if they did, we were ready to begin.
The jobs I worked generally took up to two years. During our time together, my clients would share the same stories of their personal lives repeatedly, sometimes three and four times or more. I think you can understand how at such times my mind might have begun to wander. In those instances, my imagination took free reign. As my eyes followed their lips moving, I was in a totally different world. My head was in an offbeat mode hatching wisps of ideas that were unrelated situations. When we’d finished and the client left, I’d jot down those thoughts and ideas. Some things were humorous and some were just plain introspections. When something nagged at my mind for any length of time it went onto paper and into a folder. I’m one of those people that you only have to tell me something once and I’ll remember it forever.
That’s how The Lapone Sisters got started. Those ideas were seedlings that over time grew and multiplied and became my novel. I playfully dreamed up the first names of my characters. I still have no idea where they came from and certainly had no idea if there might be a nationality involved. That was how my research began. Google came in very handy when I had one of those “AHA!” moments. I eventually found a country where the first names of my characters actually fit. Who knew it would be Romania? Welcome to the world of Schmellda, Sorina, and Esmeralda Lapone. I decided the primary setting for them would be Nashville, Tennessee. It helped me by putting them in a familiar setting. Nashville is my hometown and I have fond memories of places in my past. I want you to know that while the story is set in Nashville, my tale is not about the city. These girls could have lived anywhere in the world. The story is about personal philosophies, our differences, our commonalities, and the need for thoughtful kindness.
So, after finding Romania it became fairly easy to establish a ladder from which the story could climb. After researching the city, I began my tale in Bucharest during World War II. I picked 1944 specifically to build a family tree so the girls could be the ages I wanted some thirty years later. I felt it was important to establish a bit of family history for too many reasons to explain. April 4, 1944 saw the Allied bombing that destroyed the city. The sad reasons behind the sisters curious names are layered in these first few pages. Going forward, I wanted to make this a happy story. The story quickly jumps from 1944 to June of 1976.
It took me years to plot the exacting dates and sometimes hilarious events that take place over the six month period in 1976 covered in my story. This is a tale of three sisters and how radically their lives change during the short six months of their story. While relatively close in years, each sister is completely different. Each has their own look and desires for their future. All three have significant situations occur that propel their individual stories. On a journey to discover themselves as individuals, they concurrently learn to live truly satisfying and full lives. Their story is told through wry humor and often outlandish satire that encompasses a very colorful cast of characters.
My hope is you will become engaged in the story and enjoy the double entendres, satire, dark and light humor along with the humanity, thoughtfulness and ideological hopes of my characters and myself. When all is said and done, I would encourage you to listen to the inspiration and hopefulness expressed in the two songs referenced in the footnotes on pages 199 and 300.
Thank you for your interest in The Lapone Sisters.
Happy Reading!
Barry Wilker
www.thelaponesisters.com
Buy the book from the Publisher, Amazon, or your favorite bookstore
About the Author:
Barry Wilker spent forty-three years working as an interior designer for myriad clients across the United States. Retirement provided Wilker with ample time to assemble the amalgam of wild ideas, clever stories, and figments of his active imagination, which he has oh-so-stylishly fashioned into his debut novel, The Lapone Sisters. He lived for a number of years in the Los Angeles area and currently resides in Nashville, Tennessee.
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The Story behind ‘The Lapone Sisters,’ by Barry Wilker
thedarkphantom / 6 days ago
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I have been asked to write to you about my new novel, The Lapone Sisters. I think it will be fun to let you in on all the why’s, how’s, and what’s of the story, and the reasons that led to my final decision to put pen to paper . . . or to be honest, fingers to keyboard.
Let me first tell you a little about myself. I am a retired interior designer. For most of my career, I worked on residential design for homes from coast to coast. I primarily worked on larger homes but always made the time for smaller jobs. I worked with a myriad of clients, some with budgets and some without where the sky was the limit. Each new job felt like the start of a guessing game. We had to get to know each other. I needed to get a perspective of a new prospect’s lifestyle, their attitudes toward life, their personal tastes and interests. After a week or two in conversations we would decide if our ideas and objectives aligned and if they did, we were ready to begin.
The jobs I worked generally took up to two years. During our time together, my clients would share the same stories of their personal lives repeatedly, sometimes three and four times or more. I think you can understand how at such times my mind might have begun to wander. In those instances, my imagination took free reign. As my eyes followed their lips moving, I was in a totally different world. My head was in an offbeat mode hatching wisps of ideas that were unrelated situations. When we’d finished and the client left, I’d jot down those thoughts and ideas. Some things were humorous and some were just plain introspections. When something nagged at my mind for any length of time it went onto paper and into a folder. I’m one of those people that you only have to tell me something once and I’ll remember it forever.
That’s how The Lapone Sisters got started. Those ideas were seedlings that over time grew and multiplied and became my novel. I playfully dreamed up the first names of my characters. I still have no idea where they came from and certainly had no idea if there might be a nationality involved. That was how my research began. Google came in very handy when I had one of those “AHA!” moments. I eventually found a country where the first names of my characters actually fit. Who knew it would be Romania? Welcome to the world of Schmellda, Sorina, and Esmeralda Lapone. I decided the primary setting for them would be Nashville, Tennessee. It helped me by putting them in a familiar setting. Nashville is my hometown and I have fond memories of places in my past. I want you to know that while the story is set in Nashville, my tale is not about the city. These girls could have lived anywhere in the world. The story is about personal philosophies, our differences, our commonalities, and the need for thoughtful kindness.
So, after finding Romania it became fairly easy to establish a ladder from which the story could climb. After researching the city, I began my tale in Bucharest during World War II. I picked 1944 specifically to build a family tree so the girls could be the ages I wanted some thirty years later. I felt it was important to establish a bit of family history for too many reasons to explain. April 4, 1944 saw the Allied bombing that destroyed the city. The sad reasons behind the sisters curious names are layered in these first few pages. Going forward, I wanted to make this a happy story. The story quickly jumps from 1944 to June of 1976.
It took me years to plot the exacting dates and sometimes hilarious events that take place over the six month period in 1976 covered in my story. This is a tale of three sisters and how radically their lives change during the short six months of their story. While relatively close in years, each sister is completely different. Each has their own look and desires for their future. All three have significant situations occur that propel their individual stories. On a journey to discover themselves as individuals, they concurrently learn to live truly satisfying and full lives. Their story is told through wry humor and often outlandish satire that encompasses a very colorful cast of characters.
My hope is you will become engaged in the story and enjoy the double entendres, satire, dark and light humor along with the humanity, thoughtfulness and ideological hopes of my characters and myself. When all is said and done, I would encourage you to listen to the inspiration and hopefulness expressed in the two songs referenced in the footnotes on pages 199 and 300.
Thank you for your interest in The Lapone Sisters.
Happy Reading!
Barry Wilker
www.thelaponesisters.com
Buy the book from the Publisher, Amazon, or your favorite bookstore
The Lapone Sisters
Barry Wilker
Archway Publishing (2022)
ISBN: 978-1-665723435
Reviewed by Paige Lovitt for Reader Views (11/2022)
“The Lapone Sisters,” is the story of three sisters who are coming of age in the mid-70s. Schmellda, or Shell, is the oldest. She starts out as a chubby teen who has issues with her body producing excess oil. As time passes, she recreates herself into a beautiful talented young woman. Her talent lies in creating unique floral pieces. The middle child, Sorina, is described as tall, beautiful, and willowy. She is hampered by a severe stutter. Discovering her voice helps her to overcome her speech impediment. Esmerelda, or Esme, is the baby in the family. She has no problem letting others know exactly what is on her mind. Her gift for being dramatic suits her well when she moves to Los Angeles with Eddy, who is the love of her life. Eddy has created a unique device that will assist women with certain hygiene needs. Each young person gets to share their stories, which take us from their teens into young adulthood. The supporting cast of characters are just as interesting.
The author Barry Wilker did an amazing job of creating a believable, and incredibly enjoyable, heartwarming story about a family whose mother and grandmother got their start in the United States after arriving here under very tragic circumstances. The book begins by explaining the maternal side of the family’s history. It was so poignant and realistic; I had to double check to see if I was actually reading a non-fiction story. The young protagonists also experience a negative situation that sets the stage for them to leave their childhood and move forward into becoming young adults. A supporting character is a part of that situation, and Wilker gives her an incredibly entertaining role in his tale.
Each character is so unique and has to overcome obstacles to help develop whatever their special talents might be. Every chapter is presented through a character’s eyes. This is a nice touch, because we get to experience things from their individual perspectives. I also enjoyed reading about life in the 70s. Despite living through it as a child, I still found it very relatable to my memories. I also enjoyed the settings in Tennessee and Los Angeles. Having been to both places, it was fun to revisit them through the eyes of the characters. “The Lapone Sisters,” is the perfect novel to curl up with and escape reality. It is such a treat! I would love to have been able to read it in one sitting. It is a perfect selection for a reader’s group. Wilker is a talented, creative writer, and I truly hopes he continues to present us with more of his work. I would really love to visit with these characters again, so I am hopeful that there will be a sequel someday!
Reviewed by K.C. Finn for Readers' Favorite
The Lapone Sisters is a work of fiction in the impersonal drama and nostalgia subgenres. It is best suited to the adult reading audience and was penned by Barry Wilker. In this charming and highly enjoyable drama set largely in the summer of 1976, Wilker showcases his talent as a debut novelist by bringing us the tale of three sisters learning to find their place in the world. Schmellda, Sorina, and Esmerelda each have a very different approach to life and what they want from it, but the twisting course of events that brought them together would teach them everything they need about love, loss, and life as they journey on their adventures together.
Barry Wilker writes like a dream, and the smooth flow of this confident narrative makes it easy to fall into the setting and atmosphere of the work from the first minute. I was highly impressed that the dialogue never feels forced despite moving the plot along smoothly, and the three sisters each have distinct and original parlance without any of them becoming a caricature or falling into stereotypes. Schmellda, Sorina, and Esmerelda become as real as our friends, mothers, sisters, wives, and girlfriends, and their emotional journey takes precedence with a delicately balanced narrative quality that showcases their sorrow and joy without sensationalizing or making light of it. With plenty of laughs and heartaches along the way, I’d recommend The Lapone Sisters as a highly accomplished debut novel for drama enthusiasts everywhere.
