Lucinda Riley (1965–2021)

A solid read, but like many people, I also had a problem with the depiction of Black characters. I feel like Riley did her best, but her genre of mushy, nostalgic romance isn't one that lends itself to the topic. And I like mushy nostalgic romance! That's why I read her books.

The book was easy to read and perfectly fine until it jumped back to the past. When the characters from the past were introduced, I was terribly confused for the first few pages until I realized that the characters show more were White.

Why, why did this have to be a White saviour story? Riley did her best to include all these struggles of Black history but everything was written from a White characters POV. Had this been a book about unlearning racism for the past characters, about helping Electra coming to terms with her African heritage, I could have put up with that, but it wasn't.

There's no point in having a Black sister with her backstory set in Africa and including all these touchy topics, when the book isn't about Black characters at all. It felt like Riley tried really hard to include diversity, but it just isn't her cup of tea. Still, props to her! She did a solid job trying to dip her toes in, but this is a hard thing to write about as a White author and unfortunately it fell flat.

So, a solid 3 stars, because the book was a compelling and entertaining read, don't let my general disappointment hinder you in reading and enjoying this book. It might not be my favourite installment of the series, but I am still looking forward to next book! show less

Maybe even 4.5 stars! THE SEVEN SISTERS is the first in an ambitious series of novels Lucinda Riley plans (2 more are already written)-- each telling the story of six girls, all adopted by the same mysterious man who lives in a castle on Lake Geneva. If this one turns out to be representative of the entire series, I am totally hooked.

This novel presents the story of Maia, the oldest. It begins with the death of her adopted father, Pa Salt, and the legacy he leaves each daughter, allowing show more them to learn more about their origins. Eager to avoid a reunion with a former lover, Maia decides she will pursue her past immediately, leaving Geneva for Rio de Janeiro, where her own clue points.

In Rio, Maia discovers the dramatic story of her beautiful ancestor, Izabel, born to a nouveau-riche coffee entrepreneur who is eager to achieve the status of a well-married daughter. As Izabel's story slowly unfolds -- from Rio to Paris and back in the 1920s-- she finds herself among the artists creating Rio's famous Christ the Redeemer statue that now hovers over the city. And by discovering Izabel's story Maia is able to come to terms with her own dark secret.

It's a wildly inventive and suspenseful story, where you won't know what's going to happen next, including a zinger of a denouement on the very last page. Completely absorbing and unique! I'm off to book #2. show less

Maybe even 4.5 stars! THE SEVEN SISTERS is the first in an ambitious series of novels Lucinda Riley plans (2 more are already written)-- each telling the story of six girls, all adopted by the same mysterious man who lives in a castle on Lake Geneva. If this one turns out to be representative of the entire series, I am totally hooked.

This novel presents the story of Maia, the oldest. It begins with the death of her adopted father, Pa Salt, and the legacy he leaves each daughter, allowing show more them to learn more about their origins. Eager to avoid a reunion with a former lover, Maia decides she will pursue her past immediately, leaving Geneva for Rio de Janeiro, where her own clue points.

In Rio, Maia discovers the dramatic story of her beautiful ancestor, Izabel, born to a nouveau-riche coffee entrepreneur who is eager to achieve the status of a well-married daughter. As Izabel's story slowly unfolds -- from Rio to Paris and back in the 1920s-- she finds herself among the artists creating Rio's famous Christ the Redeemer statue that now hovers over the city. And by discovering Izabel's story Maia is able to come to terms with her own dark secret.

It's a wildly inventive and suspenseful story, where you won't know what's going to happen next, including a zinger of a denouement on the very last page. Completely absorbing and unique! I'm off to book #2. show less

Despite what I and other fans might be expecting, this is NOT the final episode in Lucinda Riley's series of historical novels, The Seven Sisters, even though it DOES focus on sister #7. Sorry to say that for me, this is the weakest of the series. Perhaps 3.5 stars is more accurate than three. But all the other novels I rated more highly, though I still remain a fan of the author.

The strongest parts of the book are the stories related to the fight for an independent Ireland (where Riley was show more born) that chiefly takes place in the 1920s. Riley's fabricated diary of Nuala Murphy was compelling in its entirety. The story of how the Irish war for independence played out in poor, rural West Cork is a fascinating David & Goliath story of poorly educated, unskilled, and impoverished farmers fighting to the death against all the power and might of the British Empire.

Nuala's story touches on income inequality between Irish Catholics and British Protestants, on the limited educational and employment opportunities available to the Irish poor, on the important, often behind-the-scenes role women played in the independence movement, and on the limited health care available to poor women unable to practice any reliable form of birth control (and the toll repeated pregnancies take on their bodies).

A separate thread Riley creates is the story of an orphan foundling, literally left on a priest's doorstep. In an effort to avoid the dreaded orphanage, the priest figures out a way to place the child in a loving home where the child (and the family) receive supplemented resources.

The weakest parts of the book for me were those taking place in contemporary times. For those who have been following the series, it's 2008 and the six daughters of Pa Salt (from the previous six novels) are desperately trying to locate their seventh and "missing sister." Unfortunately, these sections aren't much more than a series of lengthy conversations where one sister poses questions to another and the second one says she doesn't know. Or one sister asks another to chase down some lead that we, as the readers, must follow, only to find it goes nowhere. It actually becomes quite tedious and totally unnecessary to advancing the plot. At the very least, I wish Riley's editor would have pushed back on the length, if not the frequency, of these passages.

So, I WAS disappointed in this one. It didn't seem nearly as polished, tight, or crisp as the others and it was not as skillfully self-contained as the earlier novels. In fact, it felt a bit like this one was more of an effort to keep a financially lucrative series viable for yet another book. Still, I recommend The Missing Sister for fans of the The Seven Sisters series. And yes, I will go on to read the next book. show less