The Storm Sister by Lucinda Riley is the second book in her seven book series that began in 2014 with The Seven Sisters (see my previous blog). It was a great bit of escapist reading that took me away from everyday life to a landscape of Swiss lakes, sailing round the Mediterranean and finally to Norway. Oslo and Bergen are now on my travel to do list, as this reminded me it’s a part of the world I’ve never been to that sounds lovely.

The book starts with the protagonist Ally, a competitive yachtswoman, finding a brief period of happiness before tragedy strikes, and then exploring her past and returning to a long dormant musical talent to help her get through. Along the way she meets new family and explores the fascinating history of Norway’s musical heritage, as her story is intertwined with the composer Edvard Grieg and the lives of those in the music scene of Christiania (now Oslo) in the late 1800s. This is a world I knew nothing about and it was really interesting to be briefly immersed in it.

As the second book in the series, based on the mythology of the Pleiades star cluster, it was satisfying to return to the same group of characters that were so well introduced in the first. Maia, the first sister, who was the subject of The Seven Sisters, has a walk on part here. It must have been very challenging to write each book as a stand alone story, whilst ensuring it weaves into the wider narrative of the series, and also matching up to what is happening simultaneously in the other books. The books all follow the same satisfying formula – starting with death of their adoptive father and following each sister through their grief as they each explore where they came from.

I very much enjoyed the escapism this provided and will look forward to book three, the Shadow Sister, out later this year.