The Review Corner

Good Reads Rating: 4.3/5 Personal Rating: 3/5

Synopsis:

Ally D'Aplièse is about to compete in one of the world's most perilous yacht races, when she hears the news of her adoptive father's sudden, mysterious death. Rushing back to meet her five sisters at their family home, she discovers that her father - an elusive billionaire affectionately known to his daughters as Pa Salt - has left each of them a tantalising clue to their true heritage. Ally has also recently embarked on a deeply passionate love affair that will change her destiny forever. But with her life now turned upside down, Ally decides to leave the open seas and follow the trail that her father left her, which leads her to the icy beauty of Norway... There, Ally begins to discover her roots - and how her story is inextricably bound to that of a young unknown singer, Anna Landvik, who lived there over 100 years before, and sang in the first performance of Grieg's iconic music set to Ibsen's play 'Peer Gynt'. As Ally learns more about Anna, she also begins to question who her father, Pa Salt, really was. And why is the seventh sister missing? Following the bestselling The Seven Sisters, The Storm Sister is the second book in Lucinda Riley's spellbinding series based loosely on the mythology surrounding the famous star constellation.

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In The Storm Sister written by the amazing Lucinda Riley, we set sail on another adventure. This adventure being the second oldest sister of the six, Alcyone, or better known as Ally.

While she has two passions in life that are sailing and music, she lives her life being a professional sailor, competing in regattas which are sporting events that consist of boats or yacht races. It was from her adoptive father, Pa Salt, that she inherited an interest in sailing, both of them spending a lot of time out on the lake during Ally’s growing up. 

The book follows the same formula as the first one[The Seven Sisters]. The reader gets introduced to Ally and gets a snapchat/wordly story board of her life before she hears that Pa Salt had died. She then reunites with her sisters at Atlantis and gets given her letter and clues to her past. The scenes in Atlantis that are the same as Maia’s at the start of her book don’t get too repetitive, but I found myself skimming over the parts when she was with Maia or Maia and her sisters together. But of course, those parts are written from the perspective of a different character and coloured by her thoughts and her emotions, so that was interesting for me to compare her mental state to Maias. I think by this point in the book, even though it was just at the beginning, I already knew I liked Maia’s story better for I felt, personally, I related to her more than Ally, but found it interesting just the same.

The narrative then of course switches between present and past as Ally eventually decides to explore her roots. There’s a catalyst that starts Ally’s exploration into her past. I won’t say what it is to try and avoid spoilers, but suffice it to say it shocked me completely. If anything my thoughts and feelings about Ally from the previous chapters had grown into sympathy and feeling sorry for her.

Ally’s clues about her past lead her to my home country: Norway, yet she spends most of her journey in Bergen which is apparently not Norway? Like, people from Bergen don’t say they’re from Norway.[Correct me if I’m wrong for I have never been to anywhere except Australia and the United States. I should really do my research.] Any who, Ally goes to Bergen because her history ties her to the famous Norwegian composer Edvard Grief, who was born in Bergen.

The back-stories set in this series I find more interesting than the chosen sister’s in the present; there’s more romance and things going on which I love, and I seemed to be better introduced to the characters! But in this case I much prefered Isabella and Laurant’s story in The Seven Sisters than Anna’s and Pip’s in this book.

The past chapters that are connected to Ally and her birth all revolve around the premiere of Henrik Ibsen’s play Peer Gynt, the musical score being written by Edvard Grief. The story follows the main and talented singer in the play, Anna, and the equally talented violinist/flute player in the orchestra, Pip. And with that their lives interlock and a budding romance between them begins. And finding out now, this wouldn't’ be a classic Lucinda Riley book without their love naturally having complications.

There is a lot of loss and misery in both the past and present scenes. In general there seems to be a common theme of death, that doesn’t go into extreme detail mind you, and complicated love stories running through the series so far. That should be a negative thing though, for it is life, yet there is also plenty of love and warmth. It’s not all depressing.

I was glad to see another theme going in this book is the strong female characters. In the tales from the past they’re often struggling with what society or their parents want or expect from them versus following their own feelings or passions. At first I thought this was headed in the same direction as the past story from the first book where the woman gives in to the wishes of her parents instead of following her own dreams, but was pleasantly surprised when it didn’t.

I admire the sacrifices some of these women make because of this loyalty, respect, and ultimately love for their parents. But at the same time as I admire it, it also really bothers me since these days I find the parenting rules and guidelines very different. That being said, while in the past story Anna ultimately decides to follow her heart, her path is not easy.

There are a lot of similarities between Anna and Ally’s personalities but the important one to thin about is their ability to be strong in difficult situations. Both of them are able to rise out of misery and find their purpose in life. It is a powerful message that any reader can reflect on and relate to their life.

Definitely a worthy follow-up, also giving us more insight into the D’Apliese family. And once again the amount of research that has gone into it is astounding, and it shows. *french kiss*

The second novel in Riley's Seven Sisters series has taken me on another amazing journey. I love that each story explores a new historical figure, Edvard Greig; Edvard being set in the background while the fictional characters guided the story along. Also, the mystery of Pa Salt and the overall part he plays in the girls’ pasts is again touched upon. 

I'm not sure that I enjoyed Ally's story as much as Maia's, but this is still very solid and entertaining. 

Good Reads Rating: 4.8/5 Personal Rating: 4/5

Synopsis: Maia D'Apliése and her five sisters gather together at their childhood home, 'Atlantis' - a fabulous, secluded castle situated on the shores of Lake Geneva - having been told that their beloved father, the elusive billionaire they call Pa Salt, has died. Maia and her sisters were all adopted by him as babies and, discovering he has already been buried at sea, each of them is handed a tantalising clue to their true heritage - a clue which takes Maia across the world to a crumbling mansion in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. Once there, she begins to put together the pieces of where her story began . . . Eighty years earlier, in the Belle Epoque of Rio, 1927, Izabela Bonifacio's father has aspirations for his daughter to marry into aristocracy. Meanwhile, architect Heitor da Silva Costa is working on a statue, to be called Christ the Redeemer, and will soon travel to Paris to find the right sculptor to complete his vision. Izabela - passionate and longing to see the world - convinces her father to allow her to accompany him and his family to Europe before she is married. There, at Paul Landowski's studio and in the heady, vibrant cafés of Montparnasse, she meets ambitious young sculptor Laurent Brouilly, and knows at once that her life will never be the same again.

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The Seven Sisters is a 7 book series, of which, in the time that I’m writing this, only 6 books are published- the 7th book coming out some time in 2021. 

Each of the 6 books in the series has been focused around one of the 6 sisters- one book for one sister, starting from oldest to youngest- all adopted by a mysterious billionaire they all call ‘Pa Salt’ mainly for his love of the ocean and how he always smells of sea salt.

Pa Salt had adopted the sisters over the period of several years from different countries, naming all of them from the 7 sisters of the Pleiades- known as the Seven Sisters in Mythology. There’s Maia, Ally(Alcyone), Star(Asterope), CeCe(Celaeno), Tiggy(Taygete), Electra, and Merope.

Even though there are 7 stars in the constellation, Pa Salt had only managed to find only six, Merope being the 7th sister that he was never able to find[One of the many mystery in this series that I hope to find out about in the 7th book that has been titled ‘The Missing Sister’]

When the sisters are all grown up, their father, Pa Salt, dies suddenly, and each of them come back to their secluded island in Switzerland that they all named ‘Atlantis’ and reunite. Here they each receive a letter from their departed father, along with a quote coordinates to give them a clue to their origins should they wish to discover them. 

Aside from what the title suggests, this first book of the series is not the story of the Seven Sisters as a whole, but just one, the eldest, Maia.

Maia is known as the ‘beautiful’ one out of the six sister, her profession being an interpreter who translates books for authors. 

I assume she is the only one out of the six daughter that had remained at Atlantis as an adult because of her work, having her own little house next to her family mansion home on the island where she mostly lives in isolation. Though she conveniently happens to be visiting a friend in England when Pa Salt dies. There is mystery not only surrounding her adoptive father’s life, but also his death. He instructed that he was to be buried at sea, before any of his daughters were informed of his death. So when all the sisters return home it is to find that their father is already gone and the burial has taken place without them.

Even though she is the most cautious and studious of the six, roused from a call from someone from teenage years she is not yet ready to face, she leaves her little home and is the first to investigate her past and where she came from.

The clues offered to her about her past from her father’s letter and coordinates all past point to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Portuguese just so happens to be one of the two languages Maia speaks fluently.

In Rio, she meets up with a Brazilian author whose book she had translated, who also happens to be an historian, Floriano Quintelas. Floriano’s curiosity into the mystery of Maia’s past, allows him to join Maia’s adventure to uncovering her ancestry.

The coordinates from Pa Salt first lead them to a dilapidated old mansion, that houses a very old woman and her maid.

Through a series of old letters and stories handed down through generations, given by the maid, Maia starts to uncover her past, through the story of her great grandmother, Isabel “Bell” Bonifacio who was born in Rio.

As an engagement present from her fiance, Gustavo, Isabel was sent to Paris with her friend to experience the world and learn more about art. Isabel’s POV is set partially in Rio and partially in Paris during the 1920′s and 30′s as the story centres around the construction of Christ the Redeemer.

While reading, I became really invested in the Isabel's story which is set in the past. It jumps back to the present with Maia and vice versa(this becomes a common theme in all the books in the series so far), but not in an annoying way. It kept me engaged and urged me to continue reading.

I don’t want to spoil too much, and if I did there would too much to write about!

This story has so many intricate and well thought out layers fulled with compassion and depth, but enough is left for us to judge from our perspective. The characters are well-crafted and brilliant. 

From the first chapter of the book, Lucinda gave me a character sketch/story board of all the six sisters along with their nurse and their father to understand about their behaviour briefly. And in Isabel's story, we can feel each and every character, like from the moment Isabel described her would-be husband, Gustavo in her words, and then her french lover Laurent. I can almost picture while reading how they communicated and acted around her.

This story is a beautiful back-story that is connected with the history of Brazil. Lucinda has unfolded and lay-out the stories of Maia and Isabel strikingly and consecutively, with Isabel's story breaking at such vital points that it burnt me yet made my heart bleed.

Reading this has simply made me feel as if Lucinda has poured all her emotions into her words. And it defiantly shows that she had done a astounding amount of research with this book, since this is a historical fiction.

Not only did she live for a month in Rio, next door to the granddaughter of the architect of Christ the Redeemer and read his personal letters and journals, she also did research into both Paris and Rio in the time she was writing about and the historical characters involved. There’s a bibliography in the back of the book with all her sources. [Some of the characters in the book are drawn from the history books, but the stories going in and around their lives are all fictional!]

Sadly, while finishing the book, I forgot this was a fictional story, and I'm still in belief with the story of Isabel and Christ the Redeemer's statue is true, since Lucinda makes her story so very convincing enough to fall for the trap.

I'd describe this book as a true masterpiece that not only took me back in time but also took me the amazing lands of Brazil and Paris.

Although I though the conversations and dialouge between the characters where a bit messy and patchy, the emotional pull in this book is very strong, one of the reasons being that the story is told from Maia’s and Isabel’s POV, who both happens to be deeply emotional human beings and strong female figures. This is a solid work of historical fiction with some travelogue and romance thrown in the mix. It’s an adventure, a journey of discovery, and a book to lose yourself in. Well worth your time if you decide to give it a go.