A 600 pager, one of seven in the series. Am I mad? I review The Seven Sisters by Lucinda Riley
The Seven Sisters – the blurb
Maia D’Aplièse and her five sisters gather together at their childhood home – a fabulous, secluded castle situated on the shores of Lake Geneva – having been told that their beloved adoptive father, the elusive billionaire they call Pa Salt, has died.
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 . . .
Eighty years earlier, in the Belle Époque of Rio, 1927, Izabela Bonifacio’s father has aspirations for his daughter to marry into aristocracy. But Izabela longs for adventure, and convinces him to allow her to accompany the family of a renowned architect on a trip to Paris. In the heady, vibrant streets of Montparnasse, she meets ambitious young sculptor Laurent Brouilly, and knows at once that her life will never be the same again.
When is a doorstop not a doorstop?
At the start I was slightly put off by the 600 odd pages that awaited me. I went through a phase of reading a lot of really complex, doorstops a while back and have avoided them ever since. But the book was borrowed from a friend and feeling guilty I had held on to it for too long I set about reading. And to my surprise I flew through it. It was so easy to read. The plot is captivating but not complicated, the characters few and easy to remember. Take note doorstop authors!
The Seven Sisters is a book of two halves, modern day Switzerland/Brazil and 1920s Brazil/France. Whereas I think I enjoyed the building of the Christ de Redeemer section the most (So interesting, I had to Google afterwards) there is definitely a LOT of potential for the present day set up. Who was Pa Salt? Where do each of the sisters come from? Apparently there are little Easter Eggs such as names being anagrams so swot up on your astrology and the stories behind them if that floats your boat.
In for the long haul?
The whole thing felt very much Rosamund Pilcher/Maeve Binchy esque. It was gentile, easy on the brain and very readable. The remaining six books in the series have so much scope that I find myself reluctantly believing I’m in for the long haul. (The second in the series takes us to Norway and Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, the third includes Beatrix Potter!) If they are all as easy to consume as The Seven Sisters then it won’t take long for my review of the seventh.
