Review of Holy Sister by Mark Lawrence

Read for: Audio Book/ Recently Added & Highly Anticipated

Review of Red Sister

Review of Grey Sister

Synopsis: "The third instalment in a brilliant fantasy series from the international bestselling author of Prince of Thorns

Nona Grey’s story reaches its shattering conclusion in the third instalment of Book of the Ancestor.

They came against her as a child. Now they face the woman.

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."

My Review: This was one of my most highly anticipated books of this year, I absolutely loved Red Sister and Grey Sister and couldn't wait for the conclusion. Sadly, I really struggled to get into this one, even with the refresher Lawrence puts at the beginning of the book (which by the way I wish every author did for books in a series). It may have been the fact that it has been over a year since I read both Red Sister and Grey Sister back to back, or it could have been that Grey Sister just absolutely blew me away and set the bar extremely high for this one. I was not a fan of the story jumping between the past (that actually happened right after the second book) and present time (3 years later). So much of the development of the story happens off the page in that time period that I felt a little cheated (note: I just discovered there was a short story that should be read between the second book and this book, it would have been nice to know this ahead of time!!). With that said, once I finally did settle in and the major conflict began I really enjoyed it. I loved the odd twists and turns that kept popping up in the story, especially with the magic system and technology of the age. It was a good conclusion to the series, not everything was wrapped up nice-nice but what in life ever is, but we had some great closure (and maybe some satisfying revenge).

My Rating: While it may sound like I didn't like this book, I really did, it was still a great conclusion to the series, it just didn't live up to my anticipation of it or my love for the previous books.  I give it a rating of Three Paws.