Tag Archives: Lucinda Riley

#BookReview ‘Atlas: The Story of Pa Salt’ by Lucinda Riley & Harry Whittaker #romance

#BookReview ‘The Hidden Girl’ by Lucinda Riley & Harry Whittaker #suspense #mystery

The Hidden Girl by Lucinda Riley & Harry Whittaker is a story of family secrets across the generations, love and shame, jealousy and courage. Sweeping from the wild and beautiful Yorkshire moors to the horrors of occupied Poland in World War Two, it covers huge themes. Two teenage girls grow up as neighbours on the wild Yorkshire moors. Fifteen when the story begins, Leah Thompson is quiet and shy. She loves the moors, the Brontës, the wildness and doesn’t realise how beautiful she is. Desperate to help her mother Doreen support her father, who is crippled by arthritis and unable to work, Leah helps out at the nearby farmhouse where Rose Delancey is attempting to restart her career as an artist. Rose has two children. Miles, a dark-haired loner who haunts the moors with his camera when he’s home from university. His adopted younger sister Miranda, who is at school with Leah, is brash but vulnerable, and longs to escape the boring moors. Into this rural world, Rose’s nephew Brett arrives for the summer holidays. Travelling from his school at Eton, Miles and Miranda are unaware of their cousin’s existence. They’ve never met his father David Cooper, Rose’s estranged brother, who is a wealthy businessman. Teenage hormones become entangled and hearts are broken.
When a chance encounter catapults Leah into the glamorous international world of modelling, Miranda is determined to find wealth and success too. Ironically both women find themselves the focus of controlling, possessive men; a disturbing theme throughout the book. The story sweeps from Yorkshire to the South of France, New York to Milan, taking in the worlds of international modelling, photography and art. This is a story of the misuse of power, abuse, betrayal and violence that travels across the generations to the modern day. Told through the eyes of Leah and Miranda, and of brother and sister David and Rosa in World War Two Poland, this is an immersive novel to sink into. It reminded me of Penny Vincenzi’s doorstop-sized novels which lock you into the world of the characters so you can’t stop turning the pages. Except this has a harder edge.
The first Lucinda novel I’ve read since her death, The Hidden Girl is a rewrite by her son Harry of an earlier Lucinda novel. It has the clear identity of a Lucinda book, her voice is clear throughout. There is though more looseness in storyline with some of the most important action reported rather than shown directly, which makes it feel rushed and at a distance. The themes are familiar from the Seven Sisters series: truth in relationships, abuse of power, family secrets, hidden pasts and repressed violence. With myriad twists, turns, misunderstandings and betrayals, it filled an entire weekend’s reading.

Read my reviews of the first seven novels in Lucinda Riley’s ‘Seven Sisters’ series:-
THE SEVEN SISTERS #1SEVENSISTERS
THE STORM SISTER #2SEVENSISTERS
THE SHADOW SISTER #3SEVENSISTERS
THE PEARL SISTER #4SEVENSISTERS
THE MOON SISTER #5SEVENSISTERS
THE SUN SISTER #6SEVENSISTERS
THE MISSING SISTER #7SEVENSISTERS

… plus my reviews of these standalone novels, also by Lucinda Riley:-
THE BUTTERFLY ROOM
THE LOVE LETTER
THE GIRL ON THE CLIFF

If you like this, try:-
‘Inheritance’ by Nora Roberts #1LOSTBRIDETRILOGY
‘Water’ by John Boyne #1ELEMENTS
‘Nutshell’ by Ian McEwan

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE HIDDEN GIRL by Lucinda Riley & Harry Whittaker https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-8ya via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:-

#BookReview ‘The Missing Sister’ by Lucinda Riley #romance

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Well, what I thought would be the final book, the seventh in the wonderful Seven Sisters series by Lucinda Riley, turns out not to be the last after all. The Missing Sister will be followed later this year by Atlas: The Story of Pa Salt. So, I finished this latest book with many questions remaining. This is an example of a family saga that you want to run and run. The publication of the eighth book sadly follows Lucinda Riley’s death in 2021, so the forthcoming eighth book will be based on Lucinda’s draft and completed by her son Harry Whittaker. The seven sisters of the myth were Maia, Alcyone, Asterope, Celaeno, Taygete, Electra, and Merope. Their parents were Atlas, a Titan commanded by the god Zeus to hold up the earth, and Pleione, the mythical protectress of sailors. The Missing Sister is the story of Merope – Mary, or Merry, as she is called in the book – though it’s unclear whether she is lost, or simply ‘missing’ from the family because Pa Salt didn’t adopt her. The confusion over the first name adds to the twists in a book packed with twists and turns when the missing D’Aplièse sister is identified as either a mother and daughter, both called Mary. The pursuit begins with the announcement by the family lawyer that the missing sister is in New Zealand. Mary can be identified by the distinctive diamond and emerald ring she wears.
The story is told in various timelines. In the present day we hear the voices of recently-widowed Merry McDougal who leaves New Zealand on a Grand Tour around the world, of her daughter Mary-Kate left at home to run the prize-winning winery, and of the six D’Aplièse sisters who follow the clues. Plus two historical timelines – of Nuala Murphy, a farmer’s daughter in the West of Ireland in July 1920, a critical time in Irish independence; and of Mary O’Reilly starting in October 1955 in the Irish valley of Argideen.
Riley, herself Northern Irish, tells of a chapter in Irish history with a fascinating insight into the impact on a small rural community, the bravery, secrecy, divisions, the betrayals and deprivations. New to me was the ‘Cumann na mBan’, the Irish women’s volunteer movement, and its role not simply in feeding and clothing the fighting men but as couriers delivering not only messages but weapons. An inspiration to the Irish is Michael Collins, from Clonakilty in West Cork, close to where Riley sets her story. ‘The Big Fellow’ rose to be director of intelligence for the Irish Republican Army. Another real person appearing in the story is local Clogagh fighter Charlie Hurley.
My mind swirled with all the options. First of all, is Pa Salt really dead? If he’s alive, why lie to everyone and put them through so much grief? The concept of the adopted sisters raises multiple questions: who is this man, Pa Salt, who collected babies from around the world to care for them. And why does the story of Merope feel different from the others? So many new hints are dropped in this seventh novel, things that don’t add up. Most certainly this is a book to read having read the rest of the series – read as a standalone it will only disappoint.
I finished it with mixed feelings. It’s a long book [the hardcover is 816 pages] with scenes included that might have been shortened or deleted. I found the sisters’ determined pursuit of Mary at best eager but often selfish and inconsiderate. But the Irish sections are wonderful. It’s clear these were close to Riley’s heart which adds emotional depth and understanding. If you enjoy dual-timeline historical fiction combined with the globetrotting glamour of Penny Vincenzi, please pick up The Seven Sisters and start reading this series.

Read my reviews of some of the other novels in Lucinda Riley’s ‘Seven Sisters’ series:-
THE SEVEN SISTERS
THE STORM SISTER
THE SHADOW SISTER
THE PEARL SISTER
THE MOON SISTER
THE SUN SISTER

… plus my reviews of these standalone novels by Lucinda Riley:-
THE LOVE LETTER
THE GIRL ON THE CLIFF
THE BUTTERFLY ROOM

If you like this, try:-
‘The House on the Shore’ by Victoria Howard
‘Brooklyn’ by Colm Tóibín
‘On a Night Like This’ by Barbara Freethy

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE MISSING SISTER by Lucinda Riley https://wp.me/p5gEM4-5qu via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Sun Sister’ by Lucinda Riley #romance

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Electra, the youngest d’Aplièse sister in the Seven Sisters series of adoption mysteries by Lucinda Riley, has always seemed the most explosive personality of the siblings. And so The Sun Sister, sixth in the series and the one dedicated to telling the story of Electra’s family history, is explosive too. It’s a 5* read and a long one, 850 pages, as Riley digs deep into Electra’s African origins and the drug epidemic of today’s world. Supermodel Electra seems to have it all, fame, beauty, money, rock star boyfriend, a glamorous lifestyle in Manhattan. But she also has a drink and drug habit. Her behaviour is erratic, obsessive, selfish and angry, made worse by the sudden death of her adoptive father Pa Salt and being ditched by her boyfriend Mitch. Cutting herself off from friends and family, Electra is spiralling downwards when she receives a letter from a strange woman claiming to be her grandmother.
The Sun Sister tells the story of Electra’s life now in New York 2008, interleaved with that of Cecily Huntley-Morgan, daughter of a fine New York family who, in 1938, has just been jilted by her fiance. Taking up the invitation of her glamorous and eccentric godmother Kiki Preston to escape the gossip and return with her to Africa, Cecily finds herself part of the infamous Happy Valley set living beside Lake Naivasha in Kenya. Unable to stick with Kiki’s partying and frequent hangovers, Cecily makes a friend of Katherine Stewart, soon be married to cattle rancher Bobby Sinclair, who introduces her to life in the bush and to Bobby’s friend, fellow rancher Bill Forsythe. With war approaching, Cecily finds herself in an impossible position. She must choose whether to stay in Africa or take a risky passage home to America. She stays and life presents her with tragedy and a discovery that will change the direction of her life.
Cecily’s story is told to Electra by her grandmother, Stella Jackson, a prominent black rights activist in America. With Stella’s help Electra begins to understand how being black affected her childhood in a predominantly white world. In drug rehab Electra must face up to her addictive behaviour, understand its roots and learn to live life differently. Stella insists that in order to understand her birth family, Electra must first learn about Cecily’s life in Africa
Previous novels have concentrated on the stories of the individual sister’s birth family two generations back, and I have longed to know more about the sister’s birth parents. I wanted the family connections to be immediate, more accessible, and in The Sun Sister Riley delivers. The life of Electra’s birth mother acts as plot pivot which deepens the emotion of the story. Interestingly, in the previous six books I found Electra the least sympathetic and difficult to like sister, but The Sun Sister explains how Electra became the adult she is at the beginning of this ambitious series. She has the most dramatic character curve of any of the sisters so far.
Overall, The Sun Sister is excellent though perhaps slightly too long, understandable given the difficult subjects addressed.

… plus my reviews of these standalone novels, also by Lucinda Riley:-
THE BUTTERFLY ROOM
THE GIRL ON THE CLIFF
THE LOVE LETTER

If you like this, try:-
‘Pale as the Dead’ by Fiona Mountain #1NatashaBlake
‘The Ghost of Lily Painter’ by Caitlin Davis
‘The Irish Inheritance’ by MJ Lee

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE SUN SISTER by Lucinda Riley https://wp.me/p5gEM4-4AT via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Moon Sister’ by Lucinda Riley #romance

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Fifth in the Seven Sisters series by Lucinda Riley, The Moon Sister is the story of Tiggy, wildlife conservationist and warm-hearted introvert. Each of the D’Apliese sisters is different with diverse skills, interests and hugely varying birth stories. Tiggy’s story alternates between a Highland estate where she is managing the rewilding of Scottish wildcats, and the flamenco world in Spain during the 1930s. The Kinnaird Estate is a beautiful, isolated, wild place. The four wild cats move into their custom-built enclosure and Tiggy moves into a shared estate cottage with fellow worker Cal. Riley builds the Kinnaird community quickly and skilfully from new Laird Charlie to housekeeper Beryl and old retainer Chilly. It is Chilly – speaking in a muddled mixture of English, Spanish and Romani – who introduces the first hints of premonition, seeing and herbal remedies. He tells Tiggy she has healing hands. Caught up in the twists and turns of the Kinnaird family, the frictions in Charlie and Ulrika’s marriage and their tempestuous daughter Zara, Tiggy grieves for Pa Salt and is curious about her own birth family. In his farewell letter, Pa Salt tells her she comes from a gifted line of seers. She must go to Granada in Spain, to the gypsy area called Sacromonte, where she must knock on a blue door and ask for Angelina. Tiggy delays, unsure of the truth, attracted to Charlie. But when she is injured in a poaching incident on the estate, Tiggy feels upset, confused and wronged. She flies to Granada. This is a quick reminder that Tiggy, who lives the most normal, ordinary life of the sisters so far, is far from a normal girl and when times get tough, the D’Apliese wealth is ever-present.
The second storyline is that of Lucia, Tiggy’s grandmother, who rises from a tiny girl living in deepest poverty in Sacromonte to a world-famous flamenco dancer. Though Tiggy’s character and situation is appealing, I found Lucia a more difficult character. By nature energetic and stubborn, Lucia turns into a selfish, spoiled woman who rides roughshod over others. Exploited by her feckless father who keeps control of her money and career, Lucia’s few moments of caring for others were not enough for me to warm to her. But the world in which she lives, the Sacromonte community, the gypsy brujas, and the violence and depravities of the Spanish Civil War were fascinating to read. As with the stories of the other sisters, Riley concentrates most of the birth family story on a generation further back than the birth parents and there were times when I longed for less flamenco and more bruja. I also wanted to know Chilly’s story and how he came to work on a Scottish estate.
There are more teasers in this book about the truth of Pa Salt’s identity and death, but nothing concrete. There is also the reappearance of Zed Eszu, who can only be described as a sleazy millionaire cad, who first appeared in Maia’s story. What lies behind his fascination with the six D’Apliese sisters. And is Pa Salt really dead?

Read my reviews of some of the other novels in Lucinda Riley’s ‘Seven Sisters’ series:-
THE SEVEN SISTERS #1SEVENSISTERS
THE STORM SISTER #2SEVENSISTERS
THE SHADOW SISTER #3SEVENSISTERS
THE PEARL SISTER #4SEVENSISTERS
THE SUN SISTER #6SEVENSISTERS
THE MISSING SISTER #7SEVENSISTERS

… plus my reviews of these standalone novels, also by Lucinda Riley:-
THE BUTTERFLY ROOM
THE GIRL ON THE CLIFF
THE LOVE LETTER

If you like this, try:-
‘The Bear and the Nightingale’ by Katherine Arden
‘The Penny Heart’ by Martine Bailey
‘Rush-Oh!’ by Shirley Barrett

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE MOON SISTER by Lucinda Riley https://wp.me/p5gEM4-46t via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Pearl Sister’ by Lucinda Riley #romance

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I really enjoyed The Pearl Sister, the fourth in Lucinda Riley’s Seven Sisters adoption mysteries. While Maia, Ally and Star have already investigated their birth stories, Celaeno, CeCe, has shown no interest in her own. She is feeling sorry for herself, alone now that Star has become independent. Until her curiosity is piqued. Pa Salt’s lawyer tells her about a bequest, a large sum of money, and a photograph of two unidentified men. He advises CeCe to investigate Kitty Mercer from Broome in Australia. On her journey to Australia, CeCe stops off in Thailand, staying at Railey Beach where she has holidayed in the past with Star. As she wonders why she is there alone, feeling envious of Star’s new home and new love in England, she meets a mysterious man on the beautiful beach. They bond over the morning sunrise, both are hurting – CeCe is missing Star and feeling betrayed by her sister’s newfound life, while Ace is hiding a big secret he cannot, or will not, explain. Riley hints that behind the beauty of Railey Beach there is a dark, sordid side. Could Ace be involved in drugs? Then when CeCe steps off the plane in Australia, she discovers Ace has been arrested and believes CeCe betrayed him to the press. As the journalists identify CeCe’s name and location, she runs away to Broome.
As with all the earlier novels in the series, the story of The Pearl Sister is told in two strands. CeCe is in 2008, Kitty Mercer’s story starts in 1906. The eldest daughter of a Edinburgh preacher, Kitty goes on a nine month trip to Australia as companion to the wealthy Mrs McCrombie. It changes Kitty’s life. She drinks alcohol for the first time, kisses a man, and acts immodestly in ways that would shock her clergyman father. Two men, twin brothers, pay attention to her. Drummond is the dangerous brother, the one who kisses her. But Kitty reverts to type by marrying the steady, safe, Andrew Mercer, and moves to Broome where he runs the family’s pearl fishing company for his father.
I found Kitty’s story enthralling, she is a true rebel at a time when women were finding their feet and their voices. She has a way of identifying people needing help. Along her life’s journey she collects waifs and strays, rescuing them from hunger, mistreatment, poverty and racism, giving them opportunities, security and winning their loyalty. Each of them comes to play a critical role in Kitty’s life; from Camira, the pregnant Aboriginal servant girl thrown from the house by her master, to Sarah, the fifteen year old orphan met on a boat from England who has a gift with the sewing needle.
Australia the country and the lives and customs of its Aboriginal people are a dominant presence throughout this novel. Be warned, it will make you want to visit. Throughout it all runs the enticing descriptions of Aboriginal art, by real artists such as Albert Namatjira who lived and worked at the Hermannsburg Lutheran Mission outside Alice Springs, which CeCe visits.
The loose ends come together in the end though Riley did keep me guessing on a couple of the links. The significance of Ace and CeCe’s time in Thailand was one such puzzle. These are all hefty books, but I read this one quickly. It’s my favourite of the series so far which seems to get better with every book.

Read my reviews of some of the other novels in Lucinda Riley’s ‘Seven Sisters’ series:-
THE SEVEN SISTERS #1SEVENSISTERS
THE STORM SISTER #2SEVENSISTERS
THE SHADOW SISTER #3SEVENSISTERS
THE MOON SISTER #5SEVENSISTERS
THE SUN SISTER #6SEVENSISTERS
THE MISSING SISTER #7SEVENSISTERS

… plus my reviews of these standalone novels, also by Lucinda Riley:-
THE BUTTERFLY ROOM
THE GIRL ON THE CLIFF
THE LOVE LETTER

If you like this, try:-
‘On a Night Like This’ by Barbara Freethy
‘You’ll Never See Me Again’ by Lesley Pearse
‘Fair Exchange’ by Michèle Roberts

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE PEARL SISTER by Lucinda Riley https://wp.me/p5gEM4-45G via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Butterfly Room’ by Lucinda Riley #romance #suspense

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The latest family saga from Lucinda Riley sweeps from Southwold in Suffolk to Bodmin Moor, London to Cambridge, carrying with it the tangled secrets of three generations. The Butterfly Room is a big book, 640 pages, but I didn’t notice. This is so much more than a romance, though there is love – and betrayal – in its pages; at the centre of it all is Admiral House in Southwold, the home of the Montague family. The book opens in 1944 as Posy Montague catches butterflies with her Spitfire pilot father, just before he returns to the airforce for the last few months of the war. I actually found this a stuttering start, the first person voice of a seven-year old is difficult to pull off convincingly, even if she is bookish and described as ‘precocious’… a sharp, intelligent child, but one who doesn’t understand the behaviour of adults around her. In fact this first chapter is something of a prologue, setting up behaviour which rattles through the following generations. The story really took off for me when the 2006 strands start – Posy, now seventy; son Nick and girlfriend Tammy; daughter-in-law Amy; old friend Freddie and novelist lodger Sebastian. Off page, Posy married and was widowed, returning to Southwold to open up the family home. She hadn’t been there since her father was killed at the end of the war and Posy went to live with her grandmother in Devon. She raised her family in the house but now it is creaking and crumbling around her, it is too big for her and costs too much to keep going. There is some mystery about Admiral House, something happened there of which Posy is still unaware, but which is going to be disturbed as she sells the house in order to downsize.I had my guesses, and I was wrong.
The luxury of telling a story with this inter-generational scope is that it is possible to feature a number of characters in depth. Posy is the lynchpin of the book and at the centre of her family’s lives. And so we explore her eldest son Sam and his marriage to Amy, who is mistreated, downtrodden but full of love and determination. Posy’s second son Nick, a successful antiques dealer in Australia, has returned home to set up a new business. In London he meets former model Tammy, who is setting up her vintage fashion shop Reborn.
There are three core secrets, mysteries that saw me read late into the night and pick up the book at every available opportunity; something from Posy’s past, something from Nick’s past, and the business dealings of weak, unscrupulous Sam.
One of the type of books that, once you’ve finished it, you wish you’d never read it so you can start all over again. I galloped through it on holiday but some of the issues stayed with me afterwards; that fractured families can re-heal if the will is there, that cutting loose from the past can be both heart-breaking and freeing, and that it is never too late to say yes.

… plus my reviews of these standalone novels, also by Lucinda Riley:-
THE LOVE LETTER
THE GIRL ON THE CLIFF

If you like this, try:-
‘A Week in Paris’ by Rachel Hore
‘The Invitation’ by Lucy Foley
‘Amy Snow’ by Tracy Rees

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE BUTTERFLY ROOM by Lucinda Riley https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3UR via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Shadow Sister’ by Lucinda Riley #romance

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Star d’Aplièse, the third of the six adopted sisters in Lucinda Riley’s dual-timeline adoption mystery series is the subject of The Shadow Sister. Riley excels at combining a contemporary mystery with a related historical story and so far in the series Star has been something of an enigma. Almost twinned to CeCe, her nearest sister in age, she is the quiet unassuming one in this flamboyant family. In The Shadow Sister, she steps out of the shadows and discovers a past involving Beatrix Potter, Mrs Keppel and the King of England. When their adopted father Pa Salt dies, he leaves each girl a letter and clue about their birth. Star’s journey takes her first to Kensington, London, to an eccentric rare bookseller where, Star, grieving and feeling adrift in life, takes a job as bookshop assistant. She soon proves herself irreplaceable to shop owner Orlando who invites her to his family home in Kent. There she meets his surly brother Mouse – who Star thinks of as ‘The Sewer Rat’ – and delightful nephew Rory. As Star becomes caught up in the turmoil of the Vaughan family, distance grows between herself and CeCe. Slowly Star recognises that in order to work out who she is, she must be separate from her sister.
This novel is not just the contemporary story of Star ‘finding herself’ it is also the story of her ancestry. The historical strand takes us back to 1909 to Flora MaNichol who lives at Esthwaite Hall in the Lake District, and is a neighbour to Beatrix Potter. Flora’s family life is enigmatic, although she is the older sister it is the younger Aurelia who is given a London season and engagement to Archie, destined to be Lord Vaughan, encouraged. Flora would rather run wild on the fells, drawing animals and plants, avoiding her censorious father. Her life takes a turn when she too must live in London, at the house of Mrs Keppel, notorious mistress to the King. Star’s clue hints at a wealthy inheritance, a small onyx animal figurine named ‘Panther’. How can this be connected to Flora; why is she feted as a guest by Mrs Keppel, and what are the connections to Star a century later?
One issue I have with the series is that rather than actually being about the sisters’ mysterious parentage and how Pa Salt came to adopt them, they tell a historical story set two or three generations earlier. So far I have enjoyed all three of the historical stories; I am reading the series in order. The historical strands are linked to each relevant sister, but I am left feeling slightly short-changed about the truth of their birth. I want to know more about the birth parents and how Pa Salt came to adopt them. However in this book, more than the first two, his shadow is more evident so perhaps his story will be unveiled in the seventh book of the series.

Read my reviews of some of the other novels in Lucinda Riley’s ‘Seven Sisters’ series:-
THE SEVEN SISTERS #1SEVENSISTERS
THE STORM SISTER #2SEVENSISTERS
THE PEARL SISTER #4SEVENSISTERS
THE MOON SISTER #5SEVENSISTERS
THE SUN SISTER #6SEVENSISTERS
THE MISSING SISTER #7SEVENSISTERS

… plus my reviews of these standalone novels, also by Lucinda Riley:-
THE BUTTERFLY ROOM
THE GIRL ON THE CLIFF
THE LOVE LETTER

If you like this, try:-
‘House of Grace’ by Patricia M Osborne #1 House of Grace
‘In Another Life’ by Julie Christine Johnson
‘Fair Exchange’ by Michèle Roberts

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE SHADOW SISTER by Lucinda Riley https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3XO via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Girl on the Cliff’ by Lucinda Riley #mystery #romance

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This is a tale of complicated choices, tragedy and mental instability combined with all the bad luck life can throw at you. Told simply at the beginning, the emotional intensity of The Girl on the Cliff by Lucinda Riley tightens and tightens like an old screw turned so hard it can’t be loosened. Until finally it gives way. Visiting her family in Ireland, Grania Ryan is running from pain. She has just miscarried and is upset with her boyfriend, Matt, for an unexplained reason. At home she sees a young girl walking on the cliffs and is curious about her. Aurora Devonshire is eight years old, she lives in the big house beside the sea, raised by an accumulation of governesses, nannies and household staff during the absence of her father Alexander. Grania is transfixed by the child, but her mother Kathleen is worried by any contact made with ‘that family.’ The Girl of the Cliff is the story of three generations of women in the two families, their loves, losses, sacrifices, cruelties and grudges. And throughout it all runs the mystery of why Grania cannot return to New York to her grieving and confused boyfriend.
Does history repeat itself? Can bad luck be passed genetically from generation to generation? Are some people just unlucky? And are some families destined to be intertwined across the centuries? This story of the Ryan and the Lisle families includes troubled love, ballet, wealth, poverty and orphaned children. Will the worldly-wise Aurora figure out the connections? Riley keeps the secrets of her characters, revealing each titbit carefully so you want to read ‘just one more page.’

… plus my reviews of these standalone novels, also by Lucinda Riley:-
THE BUTTERFLY ROOM
THE LOVE LETTER

If you like this, try:-
‘Butterfly Barn’ by Karen Power
‘The Crows of Beara’ by Julie Christine Johnson
‘Please Release Me’ by Rhoda Baxter

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE GIRL ON THE CLIFF by Lucinda Riley http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2P4 via @SandraDanby

#BookReview ‘The Storm Sister’ by Lucinda Riley #romance

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Second in ‘The Seven Sisters’ series of adoption identity mysteries by Lucinda Riley, The Storm Sister is the story of the second oldest d’Aplièse sister, Ally. Very different from the first novel of the series which was set in hot and steamy Brazil, this book encompasses professional yacht racing, classical music and Norway. Like Maia’s story in The Seven Sisters, Ally’s tale starts with the death of their father Pa Salt. Ally reads his letter and ponders two clues. A small ornamental frog and a book from his library ‘by a man long dead named Jens Halvorsen’ lead her to Norway. This is an ambitious timeline, skipping back 132 years to 1875 and the fascinating story of Jens Halvorsen and Anna Landvik. What follows is a lovely tale of Anna being plucked from her mountain farm to sing the soprano’s part in the premiere of Grieg’s ‘Peer Gynt’, ghost-singing for an actress with an inferior voice. This performance kickstarts Anna’s career, and she settles into a new life in Christiania [modern-day Oslo] and falls in love. Of course, true love never runs smoothly and Anna continues to long for the hills of her homeland rather than the city streets. The Norwegian settings are wonderful and I wanted to stay with Anna’s life, Riley invests so much in this section it almost feels like a book-within-a-book. But The Storm Sister is an adoption mystery about Ally’s parentage, so despite loving the Anna storyline I started to wonder why Riley takes us so far back in time to the nineteenth century and the story of who in terms of age are Ally’s great-great-grandparents. When is she going to tell us about Ally’s parents and her adoption by Pa Salt?
Riley excels at the immersive detail of both sailing and singing. The inclusion of Grieg’s music and the story of Ibsen’s ‘Peer Gynt’ – which offers parallels of Peer with Jens – made me listen to the music. But three quarters of the way through the book, I started to lose interest. That surprised me; I haven’t felt that way with Riley’s other books. The mystery is thinly strung and additional storylines and characters added in the last quarter feel hurried and shoehorned in. I found myself worrying I’d missed something and started flicking back through the pages. It picks up again at the end of Ally’s story, finishing at a pace before the final chapter acts as a preview to the next book, the next sister’s story.
A doorstop of a book, The Storm Sister comes in at 720 pages. Darker than the first of the series, there are love affairs and betrayals, grief, tragedy and the depths of despair and cruelty. Each novel is the standalone story of one sister, but reading them order brings the cumulative benefits of understanding the six sisters who were raised together at Atlantis. Next in the series is The Shadow Sister, the story of Star.

Read my reviews of some of the other novels in Lucinda Riley’s ‘Seven Sisters’ series:-
THE SEVEN SISTERS #1SEVENSISTERS
THE SHADOW SISTER #3SEVENSISTERS
THE PEARL SISTER #4SEVENSISTERS
THE MOON SISTER #5SEVENSISTERS
THE SUN SISTER #6SEVENSISTERS
THE MISSING SISTER #7SEVENSISTERS

… plus my reviews of these standalone novels, also by Lucinda Riley:-
THE BUTTERFLY ROOM
THE GIRL ON THE CLIFF
THE LOVE LETTER

If you like this, try:-
‘The Beekeeper’s Daughter’ by Santa Montefiore
‘Butterfly Barn’ by Karen Power
‘The Crows of Beara’ by Julie Christine Johnson

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview THE STORM SISTER by Lucinda Riley https://wp.me/p5gEM4-3Rs via @SandraDanby

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SANDRA DANBY'S BOOK REVIEWS

Sharing thoughts on the books I read, new authors, favourite authors, classics re-visisted

Tag Archives: Lucinda Riley

#BookReview ‘Atlas: The Story of Pa Salt’ by Lucinda Riley & Harry Whittaker #romance

#BookReview ‘The Hidden Girl’ by Lucinda Riley & Harry Whittaker #suspense #mystery

#BookReview ‘The Missing Sister’ by Lucinda Riley #romance

#BookReview ‘The Sun Sister’ by Lucinda Riley #romance

#BookReview ‘The Moon Sister’ by Lucinda Riley #romance

#BookReview ‘The Pearl Sister’ by Lucinda Riley #romance

#BookReview ‘The Butterfly Room’ by Lucinda Riley #romance #suspense

#BookReview ‘The Shadow Sister’ by Lucinda Riley #romance

#BookReview ‘The Girl on the Cliff’ by Lucinda Riley #mystery #romance

#BookReview ‘The Storm Sister’ by Lucinda Riley #romance

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