The Griffin Sisters' Greatest Hits

In 2004, Russell D'Angelo, lead guitarist and songwriter of the Griffin Sisters, stands alone in a Detroit hotel room, drunk and grief-stricken. He scribbles "I never should have touched you" on hotel stationery, then walks out into the cold. He does not come back.

Twenty years later, in Haddonfield, New Jersey, 18-year-old Cherry Rohrbach slips out of school to retrieve a packed bag from her mother's suburban house. Cherry has secretly auditioned for The Next Stage, a televised singing competition, and made it to the semifinals. She wants to be a musician, but her mother, Zoe Rohrbach, a former member of the now-defunct Griffin Sisters, has fought her at every turn. Cherry also wants to escape her stepbrother Bix, whose invasive behavior Zoe has consistently dismissed. By the time anyone notices Cherry is gone, she will be in Los Angeles.

The novel shifts to 1982, when Cherry's grandmother Janice Edelman discovers she is 22 weeks pregnant with an unplanned second child. The pregnancy is brutal, and when the baby arrives, Janice does not feel the love she experienced with her first daughter, Zoe. She names the baby Cassandra, unaware that the mythological Cassandra was cursed to speak truth no one would believe. Janice struggles with the knowledge that she cannot love this child the way she loves Zoe.

In the present, Cassie Grossberg, Zoe's estranged younger sister and the Griffin Sisters' lead vocalist and keyboardist, lives alone in a treehouse on 50 acres of Alaskan wilderness with only a terrier named Wesley for company. Cassie has not sung, played piano, or listened to music in two decades, believing she caused Russell's death and the band's collapse. She considers this silence her punishment. When the band's former manager, CJ Carver, tells her their songs are charting again because of a Netflix show called Evermore, Cassie donates the royalties to charity.

The Griffin Sisters' story begins when Cassie is almost four and her preschool teacher tells Janice that Cassie played a song on the piano perfectly, with both hands, without a lesson. That night, Janice hears Cassie singing in her bedroom: low, rich, and so beautiful it makes her cry. Piano lessons follow, and at every recital, Cassie's playing transfixes the audience.

In 2024, Zoe is recognized at a Haddonfield PTA meeting and forced to confront the central fraud of her fame: Fans thank her for songs she did not write and barely sang. Cassie was the talent; Zoe provided sex appeal and showmanship. The next morning, Zoe learns Cherry has vanished.

In 2002, 20-year-old Zoe is kicked out of her band, Girl Power!, and begs Cassie, a classical piano student at the Curtis Institute, to sing with her at a Battle of the Bands. Cassie resists, terrified of being looked at, but Zoe tells her, "You have talent. You deserve to be up there." They perform Annie Lennox's "Why," and Cassie's voice stuns the bar into silence, then explosive applause.

David Katz, a record-label executive, hears about the sisters and visits their Fishtown rowhouse. He is electrified by Cassie's voice but grasps the commercial problem: Cassie is heavy and plain, while Zoe is pretty and slim. He rushes the family to audition for Relic Records, and the sisters sign. The label pairs them with Russell D'Angelo, a songwriter whose own band had failed. Russell asks what they want to say in their songs. Zoe suggests love; Cassie blurts "loneliness." Cassie and Russell immediately click, co-writing their first song in 45 minutes while Zoe watches in dismay, feeling extraneous.

On a cross-country radio-station tour, Russell touches Cassie's ankle in the van while Zoe sleeps, and Cassie falls in love instantly, secretly. Zoe, sensing Russell's fascination with her sister, acts first. In Dallas, she presses herself on Russell in his hotel room despite his resistance. He yields. The next morning, Zoe announces to Cassie that she and Russell are together. Cassie pretends to be happy.

The band records Night Ride. Russell tells Cassie she is his "muse," and they begin an intimate online correspondence. On the Today show, Zoe announces on live television, without Russell's knowledge, that they are getting married. Russell goes along with it. Cassie is devastated.

After the wedding, Russell confesses to Cassie that the marriage "isn't real" and that Zoe engineered everything. They begin a secret affair. Meanwhile, Zoe starts her own affair with Tommy Kelleher, the band's drummer, and becomes pregnant, unsure whether the father is Russell or Tommy. In Detroit, Zoe enters Cassie's hotel room and finds Russell and Cassie in bed together. She tells Russell she is pregnant, using the pregnancy to trap him. Russell writes his note, drinks whiskey, and walks out into the night. He is struck and killed by a car.

The next morning, Zoe shows Cassie the note and blames Cassie for Russell's death. Cassie believes Zoe and disappears, beginning 20 years of exile.

In 2024, Cherry is named a Next Stage finalist. The show announces a mentor twist, and Cherry petitions executive producer Sebastian Knoll to let her find Cassie. He gives her seven days and $10,000. Cherry traces Cassie to Homer, Alaska, after learning that a Safeway cashier posted a Facebook video of Cassie singing, prompting a legal threat from Cassie's lawyers. Using public property records, Cherry locates Cassie's land. Cassie opens the door holding a rifle.

Cherry identifies herself as Zoe's daughter. Over hours of conversation, Cassie shares the story of the band. Cherry returns each day, bringing food and her guitar. They make music together, and Cassie's voice remains extraordinary. Cherry persuades Cassie to try an open mic night, but Cassie's stage fright is paralyzing. Cherry recognizes that Cassie has never sung publicly without Zoe.

Meanwhile, Zoe discovers covertly taken photographs of Cherry on Bix's phone and gives her husband Jordan an ultimatum: Bix leaves, or she and the children will. She also visits her Aunt Bess, confesses everything she did to Cassie and Russell, and obtains Cassie's contact information.

Cherry convinces Cassie to fly to Los Angeles as an audience member. In the dressing room, Cherry surprises Cassie by bringing Zoe through the door. Cassie panics and flees; Cherry is cut from the competition. Zoe finds Cassie and confesses everything: The marriage was never real, the pregnancy might have been Tommy's, and the note Russell left was probably meant for Zoe, not Cassie. The guilt Cassie carried for 20 years was based on a lie. Zoe asks forgiveness. Cassie says, "I don't know," and walks away.

Zoe returns to Cherry and apologizes for not listening about Bix and for blocking Cherry's pursuit of music. She reveals that Tommy, not Russell, may be Cherry's biological father.

Cassie flies back to Alaska, but something has shifted. She volunteers to teach music at a local day program. Weeks later, she visits Zoe in Philadelphia. In Zoe's kitchen, over grilled-cheese sandwiches, the sisters acknowledge what each did wrong. Cassie says she can forgive Zoe. When she asks, "Can you forgive yourself?" Zoe answers, "I can try."

The three women begin making music in Zoe's soundproofed basement and agree to perform at the PTA winter fundraiser, with The Next Stage cameras present. At the concert, Cherry plays guitar, Zoe harmonizes, and Cassie sits at the piano and sings "The Gift." The audience erupts. Cherry kisses her fingertips and raises them to the sky, a gesture her mother made at every show, grateful for the talent she inherited, for the mother who loved her imperfectly, for the aunt who found her way back, and for all the songs still to come.