Book cover of Dear Sister: A Memoir of Secrets, Survival, and Unbreakable Bonds

Book description

In September 2017, a knock on the door upends Michelle Horton's life forever: her sister had just shot her partner and was now in jail. During the investigation that follows, Michelle learns that Nikki had been hiding horrific abuse for years. Stunned to find herself in a situation she'd only…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

2 authors picked Dear Sister as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

We don’t usually hear about the toll that incarcerating a mother, a daughter, or a sister takes on the family left behind. Michelle Horton’s beautiful memoir gives us access to that experience. Horton’s life was upended after her sister, Nicole Addimando, was arrested for killing her partner in self-defense.

Horton documents the next several years of their lives as she, her parents, her son, and Nicole’s children (who Horton took guardianship of while Nicole was in prison) navigated Nicole’s arrest, trial, and imprisonment. Illustrative in the mechanics of putting together a successful survivor-defense campaign, it is heartbreaking and infuriating in…

Taking meticulous notes in the face of a very daunting experience is a bit of the background to Michelle Horton’s memoir, Dear Sister. Imagine you get a knock on the door by the police to inform you that your sister is in jail. One can only imagine what went on in the author’s mind. All is conveyed in a nonfiction, "can’t put the book down" account of her sister who managed to hide the physical, not to mention mental, abuse she was experiencing by her boyfriend and father of her two children.

Michelle just accepted her sister, Nicole Abbimando,…

If you love Dear Sister...

Book cover of These Blue Mountains

These Blue Mountains by Sarah Loudin Thomas,

A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.

German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…

Want books like Dear Sister?

Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like Dear Sister.

Browse books like Dear Sister

Book cover of Compelled to Crime: The Gender Entrapment of Battered, Black Women
Book cover of Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color
Book cover of All Our Trials: Prisons, Policing, and the Feminist Fight to End Violence

Share your top 3 reads of 2025!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,339

readers submitted
so far, will you?

📚 If you like Dear Sister, you might also like...

Book cover of Fine Eyes & Beastly Pride

Fine Eyes & Beastly Pride by Tiffany Thomas,

All Elizabeth Bennet wants for her father to bring back from Lambton is a cutting of Pemberley’s famous roses. Little did she know that her humble request would lead to her father’s imprisonment, putting both her father’s life and her childhood home of Longbourn at risk. 

All Fitzwilliam Darcy wishes…

Book cover of Holy Terror

Holy Terror by John R. Dougherty,

Across America, a wave of brutal, inexplicable killings leaves hardened detectives and desperate federal agents grasping for answers.

But what appears to be vigilante terror is something far more ancient - an invisible war between the forces of light and the agents of darkness, playing out on the streets of…

5 book lists we think you will like!