The Sun Sister by Lucinda Riley

 

This is the 6th book in the Seven Sisters series and is the last one currently available.

 

Electra needs help but refuses to admit it. She thinks she has her drug and alcohol problem in hand and that it won’t impact on her modelling career. Her new PA disagrees. Then, enter Stella, a complete surprise from the blue, who turns out to be Electra’s maternal grandmother. And Stella has the answer to Electra’s past.
Going back a number of years we find Cecily, a kind and innocent young lady who has been wronged by a scoundrel of a man. Celia sets off to Kenya to live with her godmother and experience some of the world. What she finds is a colonial outpost steeped in debauchery and a climate and wildlife she was not prepared for. As Cecily finds her way in the new territory, she lands up looking after an abandoned baby – one of a royal line. This baby will change her life forever and her love for the child will ensure a strong ideology to carry on.
Paths will cross over time and the impact will be wide-spread on many levels.

 

I must admit I went into this book already feeling as though I was against the main character. Electra was a case of me, me, me and the teaser at the end of the previous book did nothing to endear her to me. The formula came through in this story again. Sister doesn’t know where they come from so sets out to find their past, enter a love interest, they find out they are related to someone famous and their life moves in a different path. So at the end of this one you find out there is still another book to come as the missing sister still needs to come into play.

 

As for the story itself, I loved Cecily’s story and the crazy ride that was Kenya. What she endured was remarkable and the bond between her and Stella beautiful. The tie ins with the later years across continents and the linking of racism really brought Cecily and Stella’s decisions home.
While Electra’s rehab journey was commendable, I didn’t feel vested in it. Even though her deeds in helping Vanessa and ultimately her further project for Harlem was of pure motive, I felt her emotions were somewhat wishy washy. Maybe it was the sheer length of the book or the formula that was always at the back of my mind saying “You know what will happen next.” Too many tenuous links and the characters were not rounded out. I even found myself just rushing to the end so that I could find out what happened to Pa Salt as what was happening before that did not speak to me. And when I got to the end, I was very frustrated.

 

Not my worst read, but certainly not my best.

 

 

The Moon Sister by Lucinda Riley

 

The Moon Sister is the fifth instalment in the Seven Sisters series and is all about Tiggy (Taygete) and her quest to find out where she comes from.

 

Tiggy has always felt much closer to animals than humans and has a calming and healing knack with them. When circumstances force her to start work at Kinnaird in Scotland, she jumps at the opportunity but finds her initial work and dwelling not quite what she expected. Granted, her boss is great and she certainly feels uplifted in his company. His wife, however, is frosty and threatening and seems to think Tiggy is after her man! Kinnaird is in financial trouble, and after an incident with a rare white stag, Tiggy decides the time has come to find out where her olive skin and silky black hair fit in. Spurred on by a gypsy on the land called Chilly who tells her she has special powers, she sets off to Granada in Spain.
The back story here is one of Lucia – a child born to dance with the passion to take the world by storm. We move in her story through her father’s ambition and lecherous ways, and how her stalwart mother did everything she could to protect the rest of the family through times of war and poverty.

 

This felt like an extremely long section of the series. And very oddly like a tale of two halves. I completely understand how there is meant to be two sections to join the past and present, but since this is Tiggy’s story it felt like most of it was dedicated to Lucia and her family and only then do we find out where Tiggy fits in. The backstory with Tiggy and her boss at Kinnaird was slightly odd and her “accomplishment” (can’t say more because of a spoiler alert) right at the end was way off base. The romantic interest formula played its hand and I have a bad feeling that the one she spurns will crop up again.
Even though Lucia had amazing talent, she was one of the most annoying and childish characters and I almost wished I could just jump past her sections.
The Pa Salt mystery is still playing in the background and as we came close to finding out a major clue it just got brushed aside.

 

The series is really running out of steam and I’m almost dreading reading Electra’s story next.

Void Fate by Suren Hakobyan

 

Void Fate is a dark fantasy novel with a dystopian thriller twist.

 

What would you do if you’d gone to sleep and woken up to find everyone bar you and four of your friends were gone? Just vanished. And not just that, but sound seems to have gone too. Not to mention no sign of animals anywhere. There has been a rush of people disappearing recently and a suspected serial killer on the loose—is this part of it? As Aram, Michael, Daniel, Arthur, and Harris try to find out what has happened to them and the rest of the planet, they will find themselves trapped in a world that makes no sense. Why is the town surrounded by a dome? Why does the landscape change every now and again? Who are the cloud-like demons that chase you down and kill you? And most importantly, will they remain sane enough to find their way out?

 

The story grabbed me quickly as I envisaged a stale and leftover world like The Langoliers but trapped like they were in Under the Dome. The author has spun a tale on a number of levels, where not only is the basic issue of where they are and what they will do about it addressed, but he covers what happens when humans are put in extreme situations and what they will do to survive. So here you have a group of friends who by all means, having known each other as long as they had, should be very close and trusting of each other and having each other’s backs. However, as we progress through the story, we find out how fear and mistrust cause them to commit deeds they would never normally do.  Or is that to do with the madness the new world is forcing on them? The author has very cleverly weaved in what they suspect to be happening with the disappearance of the bodies and it’s a novel take on an alternative world.

 

However, I did find the pacing very slow in this. Considering that they knew they were trapped somewhere and had to do something early on to get out there was quite a bit of space left in the book for events to happen. A lot of the time it was just them moving from one location to the next, and while I understand it was to avoid being detected, the moving just seemed to be the same thing happening over and over told a little differently. So you’d have something interesting happen and then a move, then something interesting happen and then a move. It felt like it took too long to get to the point. I never really connected with the characters, even though the short chapters and POV jumps helped the reader to understand the situation from all angles. Or maybe it was because of the quick jumps that you never really got to stay in a character’s head long enough to properly feel their emotions. The dome angle was never explored, which I felt strange and the introduction of secondary characters certainly made your trust waiver from one camp to the next.
There were some punctuation and grammar mistakes throughout but nothing major that would stop your flow of reading.

 

I would definitely recommend this book but note that there is profanity and a scene of abuse.