#holy sister

***I received a galley of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you publisher! ***

6 out of 5 stars

From the beginning, from the very first few sentences of The Red Sister - I knew that this series was going to be special. I remember devouring the first book and falling madly in love with the characters of the world. When you love a series so much there’s always something very bittersweet when you receive the last book, and you cannot help but wonder - will it be good? Will it do justice to the characters I love? Well I shouldn’t have doubted Mark - he left my heart on the floor, sobbing my eyes out - it was beyond better.

I will not go into a lot of details because I do not want to spoil it for anyone. However, I will say this, the ending is everything you want and more. It is full of twists and turns and thing I never saw coming and loss and love and hope. And the last paragraph - my god - that last paragraph  is honestly EVERYTHING.

This is Mark’s magnum opus (in my opinion) and I highly suggest anyone who loves strong female characters, badass fighting scenes, close friendships, intense romance and incredible sci-fi setting to pick up this trilogy.

~Iryna

‘THEY CAME AGAINST HER AS A CHILD. NOW THEY FACE THE WARRIOR.

The ice is advancing, the Corridor narrowing, and the empire is under siege from the Scithrowl in the east and the Durns in the west. Everywhere, the emperor’s armies are in retreat.

Nona faces the final challenges that must be overcome if she is to become a full sister in the order of her choice. But it seems unlikely that Nona and her friends will have time to earn a nun’s habit before war is on their doorstep.

Even a warrior like Nona cannot hope to turn the tide of war.’

The shiphearts offer strength that she might use to protect those she loves, but it’s a power that corrupts. A final battle is coming in which she will be torn between friends, unable to save them all. A battle in which her own demons will try to unmake her.

A battle in which hearts will be broken, lovers lost, thrones burned.’

Many thanks to Harper Voyager for a copy of Holy Sister in return for an honest review.

I first read ‘Red Sister’, the first instalment in the ‘Book of Ancestor’ trilogy, in 2017. I immediately fell in love with the tumultuous adventures of our protagonist, Nona Grey, who manages to find herself with mortal enemies before she exits single figures. A worker of dark magic and adopted by a monastery of fighting nuns, Nona’s story is spread across a trilogy and ‘Holy Sister’ is the final work that brings all the threads of her story to a stunning conclusion.

By the start of ‘Holy Sister’ we have followed Nona through her childhood and teenage years, through her education in fighting and magic and her journeys along the length and breadth of the Corridor. Nona is a strong and impassioned young woman who has developed a sense of person and her own brand of right and wrong. Surrounded by fierce and complicated characters, such as her fellow magic worker and former nemesis Ara and the shadow touched Sister Kettle, Nona has reached the prime of her power and the understanding of just how much the world has to fear from the plots spawning on all sides. Lawrence manages to bring the complex storylines to a conclusion that is eminently satisfying.

Through the course of these books I’ve laughed and cried in equal measures. The relationships between characters are complicated and fraught in all the best ways. I won’t spoil the final relationship status of Nona at the end but it’s beautifully resolved and, honestly, made me well up with happiness. It’s a conclusion that makes beautiful sense considering how well it had been seeded through the rest of the trilogy.

The ending of this book will make you feel something. There is overwhelming loss and terror. No character is safe in a realistically destructive battle that will make you feel sick to the base of your stomach in fair measure. I’ve always loved how these books meld both science fiction and fantasy and the ending of this book brings those threads together wonderfully. It’s a dark, bleak and emotive conclusion to a series that I will read over and over again.

If you enjoy dark fantasy with complicated heroines, interesting world building and stunning writing then I deeply suggest you pick up the ‘Book of the Ancestor’ trilogy. I’ll be interested to see whether Lawrence writes further novels in this world and, if he does, I will be picking them up in a breath.