Review: The Sun Sister by Lucinda Riley (audio)

Title: The Sun Sister

Author: Lucinda Riley

Series: The Seven Sisters, #6

Narrator: Weruche Opia, Sophie Roberts

Published: February 2020, Whole Story Audiobooks / May 2020, Atria Books

Length: 26 hours 14 minutes / 656 pages

Source: Audio – Personal copy via Audible / Print – ARC Paperback via Publisher

Summary:

The Sun Sister is the sixth installment in the multi-million
selling epic series, The Seven Sisters, written by the No.1 bestselling
author Lucinda Riley

To the outside world, Electra D’Aplièse seems to be the woman with
everything: as one of the world’s top models, she is beautiful, rich and
famous.

 

Yet beneath the veneer, Electra’s already tenuous control over
her state of mind has been rocked by the death of her father, Pa Salt,
the elusive billionaire who adopted his six daughters from across the
globe. Struggling to cope, she turns to alcohol and drugs. As those
around her fear for her health, Electra receives a letter from a
complete stranger who claims to be her grandmother . . .

In 1939,
Cecily Huntley-Morgan arrives in Kenya from New York to nurse a broken
heart. Staying with her godmother, a member of the infamous Happy Valley
set, on the shores of beautiful Lake Naivasha, she meets Bill Forsythe,
a notorious bachelor and cattle farmer with close connections to the
proud Maasai tribe. But after a shocking discovery and with war looming,
Cecily has few options. Moving up into the Wanjohi Valley, she is
isolated and alone. Until she meets a young woman in the woods and makes
her a promise that will change the course of her life for ever.

Sweeping from Manhattan to the magnificent wide-open plains of Africa, The Sun Sister is the sixth installment in Lucinda Riley’s multi-million selling epic series, The Seven Sisters.

My thoughts: Without
a doubt, this series is going down as one of my favorites! This is the
latest installment, book 6, in Lucinda Riley’s The Seven Sisters series
and with each subsequent book, I fall more in love not only with the
D’Apliese family, but also with Lucinda’s writing. It is magical and
just pulls you into the story so that you don’t want to put the book, or
audio, down until you have reached the last page. It’s amazing just how brilliant this series is and I can already tell it’s going to be one that I will be rereading in the future!

I will say I have been a little apprehensive to get to Electra’s story. She is not my favorite of the sisters and I was afraid that I would not enjoy her story as much…and to be honest, in the beginning, I did find her to be quite bratty. But, don’t let that turn you away. This story is so much more than her annoying behavior at first. I promise – it gets better…just give it time. She’s written this way for a reason, and while it does take time to get past this, it is worth it.

As always, one of my favorite parts of this series has always been the cultural education I feel I am getting from each and every one of these books. This time we travel from NYC to Kenya – a place I know I will probably never travel to myself. We go there during the 1930s-40s and I feel like I learned quite a bit not only about the people but also about the land itself. I love this aspect of the book. I had never heard of the Maasai tribe before or of Happy Valley, but I feel that through this book, I have a better understanding of it and this is why I so love reading historical fiction. The research that Lucinda Riley pours into these books is so rich and detailed, it never ceases to amaze me.

This was a story that I thought I was going to struggle with and yet I absolutely ended up loving. And it has me only more eager for the final book in the series. We will finally find out just who the seventh sister is and possibly who Pa Salt is. As much as I want to know these answers, I don’t know that I want this series to come to a close…I have so loved getting to know each of the sisters these past six years and traveling all over the globe. If you haven’t picked this series up yet, I highly recommend doing so – and reading them in order…they might be big books, but they are all-consuming and really are the perfect books to take your mind off what is going on right now.  

Audio thoughts: I have listened to every book in this series so far and enjoyed each one. While this latest one was quite a long book to listen to, coming in at just over 26 hours, I could not listen to it fast enough. I think I finished it in 2 days…I just had to keep listening, I was so caught up in both story lines and quite enjoyed both narrators. Whether you read the book or listen to it, this is one story not to miss.

Books in this series:    

1. The Seven Sisters
2. The Storm Sister
3. The Shadow Sister
4. The Pearl Sister
5. The Moon Sister 
6. The Sun Sister – due out May 19th
7. ???