Seven Sisters - Lucinda Riley

[NailyDale]

A month or so ago, it felt like my entire social media exploded with people thrilled that the final 'Pa Salt' story had come out and they could finish the series. People were so excited. I had somehow missed the whole thing. Never heard of Lucinda Riley or the Seven Sisters series.

Never one to miss out on a fad I bought the first one. Well. It's quite a fun idea, but it's a bit twee. I'm not sure how much more "effortlessly slender limbs" or "green eyes flashing indignantly" I can take. It's like a Mills & Boon, but 700 pages long! Everyone is beautiful, rich, and enigmatic. Also, everyone has a 'thing' - a single personality trait that informs their every move.

Has anyone else read it?

I remember reading the first chapter of the first one and cringing because of the style you describe HOWEVER I persevered and actually read them all and loved them- the plotting and stories are clever and there is a bit of historical interest in each one.

I'll keep going on the first one. It's zipping along, and tbh I'm not looking for a challenging read at the mo. She's met the square-jawed tour-guide / author "my gaze swept briefly over his handsome, tanned face" as he "regarded me with a hint of amusement in his dark brown eyes".

I'm hoping I don't get hooked - 8 books of it might be a bit much!

I loved the series and devoured them all.

However, I get where you are coming from. Some of the stories are better than others, and although I thought the first one was slightly overly long, I did enjoy it.

Overall, I thought they were good books with good stories, and a bit of escapism. Yes, they were rich, wealthy sisters who had lived a charmed life, but that aside, they’re good stories.

They're not fantastically written but I like the historical aspects of them.

I can't decide what I thunk about these books at all. But I'm on number 4 so I obviously keep liking them.

On one hand they're quite shallow and Mills and Boon, there are some I've thought quite early on that it's going to be a predictable story along the lines of "x is going to get together with y when really she loves z and she's going to have a baby with someone she shouldn't" and you can almost guess exactly how it will work out.

Don't these folk realise how babies are made? Surely even in 1884 they had a rough idea that maybe they shouldn't have so much sex with people they're not married to.

But there's something more in each one that keeps me reading to the end. And reading the next book too.

I'm on book 3 and enjoying the series even if there's a lot of sameness between them. I don't want to give anything away but there are aspects of the books I really like and am keen to see how book 7 works out.

After seeing so much about them on here I tried the first one as an audio book free from the library.

I gave up after 2 painful hours of sub-Mills and Boon descriptions of lithe limbs and glossy hair.

“Oh, Dearest!” she gushed, gushingly….

I listened to them all. I enjoyed them. But I listened over a number if years, I'm not sure I could do one sister after another. One I wasn't so crazy about but listened to it anyway.

They were recommended to me and I got the first for 99p on kindle.
However I gave up around the 20% point which was really way too far. Twee describes it very well. Also quite a childish writing style?
My late DM would have LOVED it though, all that romance but no sex (at least not as far as I got)

I spread them out as well, and read one every few months. Some I liked more than others. However, the author was quite ill during the writing of some of them.

I read book four, The Pearl Sister, last year as a friend lent it to me. I really enjoyed it as cheesy escapism, and a lot of it was set in Australia in places I'd been many years ago so was nostalgic for me too. I hadn't realised it was part of a series until I'd finished it...

I've since gone back to book one (meh), book two (slightly better), and am now about 150 pages short of finishing book three (really enjoying).

Like others, I read a totally different type of book in between. No way could I do back-to-back twee. There would be a fear ones eyes may stay permanently rolled back in ones head...! 😂

However, they are almost like an addictive, guilty pleasure, predictable, trashy tv series. Once you've read a couple you're hooked and they're actually comforting, easy reads. I really enjoy learning a little about history through the dual-time line, too.

Anyone else Google some of the real-life characters and then go down a rabbit hole?! Definitely done that during this one, The Shadow Sister.

@Canyoucheckonme Yes! I checked out loads of the characters mentioned. So long since I listened to the shadow sister that I can't remember all my rabbit holes!

While they are predictable I found that some of the back stories/ history ones could be a little crueller and probably more true to life because it's in the past and you can separate the sisters story from that of her ancestor so you still get that nice comfortable feeling from the book over all.

Funny, it was the Pearl Sister I didn't like. I liked the over all story and had also lived in Australia for 2 years so had been to a few of the places but I found Cee Cee a bit annoying.

I was pregnant when listening to one, DH veto'd all the names inspired by the 7 sisters 😂

@pontipinemum So glad your DH vetoed those names...! 😂

Ah maybe I preferred The Pearl Sister because it wad the first one I read and it was a novelty! I also didn't like Cee Cee, but I don't have to like a central character to enjoy a book.

The Shadow Sister is set in the Lake District and London. Famous people mentioned inc Beatrix Potter, Vita Sackville-West and Alice Keppel, so I've enjoyed researching them/Bloomsbury Set/The National Trust/The Royal Family (ie Judith Keppel of game show fame is related to Alice Keppel).

Don't worry, no plot spoilers above for anyone who hasn't yet read that book!

@Canyoucheckonme I know 😳all I'll say is pregnancy brain!!