THE PLOT: ‘The Seven Sisters’ by Lucinda Riley is historical women’s fiction about the adopted daughters of a mysterious millionaire. After the death of their adoptive father, Maia and her sisters gather together at their family mansion in Geneva where each sister is handed a clue about their natural parents. As the eldest, Maia’s clue takes her to Rio Janeiro where she begins to put together her family’s story. Through a dual timeline, we are transported back to 1927 where Maia’s great grandmother must choose between her head (marrying into an aristocratic family) and her heart (romance with an impoverished sculptor working on a new statue of Christ).

RATING: This is a fun, accessible novel that is perfect for lovers of historical fiction that skews more commercial. With strong elements of mystery and romance, I can see why this book would appeal to a wide range of readers. Although this series is inspired by the Pleiades in Greek Mythology, it’s very much set in the real world and it was a pleasure to learn about Brazil and Paris in the 1920’s via the dual timeline. However, I don’t think I’ll read the rest of the series. It’s very long and I don’t feel passionately enough to invest my time in them when there are so many other books on my ‘to-buy’ list. Overall, it’s a solid four stars for an enjoyable read but it didn’t rock my world.

GOOD BITS: The author does two really clever things to hook the reader. The present timeline starts with the mystery of the dead millionaire father and the reader wonders why he adopted each sister (and how he really died). It morphs into the mystery of the eldest sister on a quest to find her birth parents and then transports the reader to the past, where our main character has to choose between love and duty. This plants so many curiosity seeds and such an engaging premise. There were a few slow bits where the past timeline felt like a soppy romance, but I connected with both the past and present main characters and enjoyed their arcs.

NOT SO GOOD BITS: My main criticism is a huge spoiler so I’ll try to keep it vague. The dual timeline comes to a very abrupt end. After spending so much time falling in love with the characters in the past, their stories are suddenly wrapped up in the present-day. This felt a little anti-climactic and it was a shame because my favourite characters disappeared from the novel. I don’t think the author could’ve changed this structure because of the frame narrative of each of the adopted sisters finding out their true heritage, but it made me less engaged with the overall story.

Additionally, in the past timeline the Black characters who were descendants of slaves and continued to work for their former coffee plantation owners into the present timeline, which didn’t sit well with me. Along with having the two sisters of colour being a) adopted by a random white millionaire and seemingly be stolen from their native countries, and b) be the bolshy “problematic” ones painted in a more negative light than the white sisters, I felt a bit uncomfortable. This book was published a decade ago and I don’t think it’s helpful to be too “woke” in this instance so it didn’t stop me enjoying the book but my Spidey senses were tingling…

OVERALL: I’d recommend this book to fans of ‘The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo’ by Taylor Jenkins Reid, ‘The Return’ by Victoria Hislop and ‘The Ship of Brides’ by Jojo Moyes. I reckon this series would make great holiday books if you’re travelling to where each of the sisters’ past timelines are set.