I am so sad that this trilogy is over, but it did go out as brilliantly as it started.
The threads that Abbess Glass was pulling all came - finally - into view with a satisfying conclusion.
Nona and her gang were utterly fabulous, with reality and complexity that wouldn't be expected from the characters we first met in Red Sister. but the connections and development were visible and believable.

It is a rare thrill to find an author who can keep your brain challenged, your feels fulfilled and your pulse pounding book after book after book. You know, the ones that make you hold your breath without realizing it? Or ignore your family because the book is so damn good? I am happy to report that I am able to pick up any of Mark Lawrence’s books with the same expectation each time: This one will also be epic. The man and his characters and his stories have never let me down.

Written entirely from Nona’s POV this time, the story is broken into two different timelines, three years ago and present day. But first, the prologue takes a few pages to remind us just how freaking kickass Nona is by having her kick some ass in a fighting ring. Lawrence always has the most memorable beginnings.

Holy Sister picks up exactly when Grey Sister ended with the Abbess, Sisters and novices of Sweet Mercy making their escape from the palace. Always keeping her cards close to her habit as she plays the long game, Abbess Glass sends Nona and Zole to the ice with the shipheart.

The story jumps to present day with Nona preparing to take her final tests to become a Sister. I can’t say much about the present day narrative as it reflects what happened on the ice and over the last three years and some events are incredible twists. Fabulous twists. There are others that broke my heart.

The book weaves it way back and forth, past to present, until the day it connects. Then, there is the most epic of battles. It’s bloody. Pulse pounding. Heartbreaking. The Path Walk from some of these women is stunning. The writing is captivating. It’s page after page of Nona fighting what can only be described as a multi-layered, perhaps even multidimensional, battle. It was exciting and thrilling and ultimately exhausting. This is where we are once again reminded,

“It’s important, when killing a nun, to ensure that you bring an army of sufficient size.”

This is a genius piece of work. It is complex but engaging with well-written characters that you care about, or hate, or hate to care about. It has a wicked sense of humor (hey, it made me laugh during a battle scene). And all the threads, all the pieces, all the clues—everything was in its place by the last page.

This book perfectly completes the story of Nona, the dirty little cage girl, who grow to become a fighter, a loyal friend, a tactician, and a Sister. Can NOT wait for the next trilogy!

A HUGE thank you to Emma Pickard of Harper-Collins for the ARC!! (I’m still going to buy a hardback April 9th though because the cover is so cool)

5 of 5 stars
https://lynns-books.com/2019/03/28/holy-sister-book-of-the-ancestor-3-by-mark-lawrence/
Holy sister is the final book in the Ancestor series and brings to a conclusion Nona’s story. If you haven’t read the first two books then this review may contain spoilers so be aware of that before reading this (although I do try to avoid spoilers as a general rule).

To be honest, and before I say anything further about Holy Sister I must confess that I find myself totally in awe – I’ve read three complete series by this author and every single book has been a five star read for me. If you read fantasy and like your speculative fiction to sit within the grimdark genre then you should be reading Mark Lawrence. I grow tired of repeating the same things in each review and perhaps need to come up with something different but for consistency’s sake I’ll say it yet one more time. Mark Lawrence writes incredibly well. I love his writing first and foremost but then he also has the ability to bring a much longer game into play whenever he creates a story. If you’ve read the first book in this series you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about when you pick up this final instalment. His imagination and creativity is amazing, he writes his characters into the most ridiculously difficult situations but then gives them ways to get out of them when it feels otherwise hopeless. Here he’s taken a nunnery, I kid you not, and turned it into a school of novices, not only for those wishing to take holy orders but those wishing to take a much more lethal way of life. I think when this author started the Ancestor series I’ll admit I thought it was a bit of a risk. Here he’s taken a young girl as his main focus and placed her as a novice. It doesn’t really sound like your usual grimdark fayre and yet it works brilliantly. It’s a bold move that paid off and one that I think will hold appeal to a much wider audience. To be clear, Nona is not Harry Potter. There is still bloodshed and death painting these pages but none of it is there for the sake of it and the grim surroundings and brutal lifestyle all help to lend extra focus to the friendships found within these pages.

I’m not going to talk about the story. The series in its entirety is plotted to perfection and you need to read to the end in order to get the full picture.

The story is told in two timelines. The ‘present’, which sees Nona coming towards the end of her novice training. We’ve jumped forward three years, the ice is encroaching and with it the advance of two armies, one from the east and one from the west with the Emperor firmly ensconced in the middle. Things don’t look good, it’s highly likely that the novices won’t complete their training before being recruited into battle and Nona and her friends are conspiring together, yet again, to try and find a solution. In case you’re asking what happened after Grey Sister. Well, the other storyline picks up directly after the conclusion of that book. Nona and her companions have escaped death and have a brief reprise but they still need to return to safety and Zole is carrying a prized possession that will lead their enemies to them. Acting as decoys Zole and Nona take to the ice.

What I loved about this.

The setting is brilliantly imagined. This is indeed a brutal world – mostly covered in thick ice with just a thin corridor of habitable space that is slowly shrinking and creating desperation in the surviving population. The wars here are not ones about money and power but more a simple matter of survival.

The characters. Well, I think everyone will have their own favourites of course. Nona is an excellent character and one that I feel a lot of readers will love. She values friendship and its this quality that gives her such desperation within the pages of Holy Sister when she has to make difficult choices about who to save first! Here is a person who can forgive and it’s really unexpected, put simply she never wants to give up on a friendship when it can still be redeemed and she makes some very unusual decisions here related to promises. Zole, wow, what a character. Her arc was quite unexpected, well, in some ways it was expected but in others it was completely surprising, She is still cool as a cucumber and totally badass. I really liked her and I had a stomach clenching moment when reading this – but I’m not going to tell you why. Nona also has a small group of very close friends, closest among them being Ara. The two have a beautiful friendship that blossoms into something more. Then we have the Sisters. My giddy aunt. I love these women. Abbess Glass plays the long game, even when she’s no longer around she’s in fact still meddling, she has a longer game than Lawrence himself in fact. Sister Apple and Sister Kettle – I love them both. I think Kettle is probably my favourite although in this instalment Sister Pan definitely showed what she’s made of – and it’s pretty awesome stuff! Where did that come from!! I don’t want to give away spoilers though so my lips are sealed yet again.

What more can I possibly say without giving away plot points. I could tell you to read this series. I strongly recommend it, in fact I beg you to read it, I just want you to be happy after all, you can thank me later.

Any criticisms. No. But, I will just mention that the ending is sort of bittersweet. There is war amongst these pages and it’s never pretty and almost always unforgiving. Characters die. I expected it and yet it was still shocking. I didn’t want anyone to die and yet at the same time I knew it was inevitable. What I can say is that the death here was not contrived but felt like a natural part of the story.

I picked up Red Sister with trepidation and then said in my review ‘it’s a great start’.

I devoured Grey Sister in a couple of days and then said it had ‘paved the way for something that promises to be dramatic’.

I can finish my review of this series by concluding that the end was indeed dramatic. Holy Sister is a wonderful conclusion to a thoroughly entertaining series. I raced through the pages of this book and in some ways that gives me regret because really I wanted to stay longer in this unforgiving world but, the beauty of all of this is that I can read it all again! I closed this book feeling totally satisfied and with a massive book hangover. What more can I possibly say. Read this series.

I received a copy through Netgalley, courtesy of the publisher, for which my thanks. The above is my own opinion.

4.5 Stars

So I said it in my review of the previous book but I will say it again here. Thank you thank you thank you Mark Lawrence for including a little "catch-up" chapter at the beginning of your books. That little reminder of the characters and events of the previous book really are invaluable and allow us to jump straight into the action.

Rather than two point of view characters in this book we have Nona as our soul narrator. However, we do have dual timelines. One following on directly from the end of the second book and the other 3 years later. This does take a little getting used to in order to get oriented with the book but once you get into the rhythm I very much enjoyed this style of writing. In the chapters set 3 years later we are teased and hinted at about things that have happened in between and directly after the events of Grey Sister which keeps us guessing and reading.

The book goes along at a steady pace for the first half of the book and about halfway through I find myself wondering how everything is going to come to a conclusion with so few pages left! That is where the pace really ramps up and the reader is thrown headlong into twists and turns in a non-stop rollercoaster all the way to the end.

We are once again joined by those wonderful secondary characters from the previous two books. These girls are now coming of age and their maturity and relationships are growing with them. I just wanted a little more of them. Much of the book was all about Nona with the other girls really being in the background. For some reason Nona insists on doing literally everything herself, even when it really would make more sense for someone less conspicuous to do it. Nona's stubbornness is very much one of her flaws and I found myself getting a little frustrated with her at times. I think I'm just a bit salty because Ara is my favourite character and she's not featured as much as I would like her to be in this one.

Having said that, Nona's numerous flaws make her such a realistic likeable character. We do now have some pretty badass female characters in fantasy but I really love how flawed and unpretty Nona is. She's over 6ft tall, short hair, no shadow, jet black eyes, stubborn, jealous and moody. She's also talented, loving and just plain kickass.

The ending perhaps felt a little bit rushed to me and I would have liked a bit more detail. However, loose ends are all tied up. The future is hinted at, and it was mostly very satisfying. I feel such a connection to all of these characters it is genuinely so sad to say goodbye to them. I miss Sweet Mercy already!

Overall this was a stunning trilogy that had literally everything I want in a high fantasy. It has the characters, the world building, the originality, the writing and above all it has love. Love has been put into the writing and the story and you really can tell.

High praise indeed for Mark Lawrence!

Thank you very much to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review

I loved this fitting end to a great fantasy trilogy. There was a lot to wrap up from books 1 and 2, but Mark Lawrence still managed to bring this to a satisfying conclusion.

It had all of the action, adventure and mystery that made this series so great. Sweet Mercy convent is one of those settings that has so much to give. The characters there are beautifully portrayed, and the setting is perfect - everyone loves something that combines apparent magic and learning! It would be great to see more from Abeth, or the convent in the future.

The book's one down side was, perhaps, that because there was so much structured plot to cover, the story felt quite forced in places, as it had to fit the ending - the same with cutting between present-day Nona and the None from the end of Grey Sister, and some of the conversations between Nona and her friends. Given the pressing events - there wasn't always time for that level of exposition!

However, that didn't stop the story coming to a dramatic and exciting ending, with the perfect Epilogue.

The final book of the trilogy and it's superb. I was totally gripped from the start.
Written in two different time frames that race along side by side at the start then eventually arriving at the present.
As Nona and her friends face their final challenges and earn their habits a bigger challenge is on the way.... War.
I highly recommend this series.

I cannot put my finger on why but I was never gripped by Holy Sister in the way that I was by the previous two volumes (Red Sister and Grey Sister). Sad really because I enjoyed the first two books enormously and galloped through them very quickly. Although this episode is full of action, it seemed to move slowly and so it has taken me days to read. Maybe I have had an off week but 3 stars is what I feel it deserves.

"All leaves must fall in time […] The lives we lived fall away from us, but something remains, something that is part of the tree."

I’m not a fan of Mark Lawrence, however, this trilogy is one of the best. Is not an epic fantasy but a mix between a grim-dark coming-of-age story with tinges of sci-fi. I usually do not like the blend between the two genres, but somehow, Lawrence does a great job mingling them.

Holy Sister is the final installment in this series and an excellent one. There are two timelines in it: first picks up events from where Grey Sister stopped and the other three years later, when Nona must make her choice from the four orders of nuns.

The war between Queen Adoma and the Emperor Crucical is at the door, the Corridor is narrower by the day and salvation resides in bringing the four shiphearts together to find and open the Ark and take control of the Moon.

There are lots of twists, fierce and gruesome battles and quite a few surprises on the way, some of them mouth-gaping. Our heroines are as complex as in the other books, even more here, where all aces must be pulled out of the sleeves in order to survive.

All in all, it was a hell of a ride and I think Nona made her way in the top 10 fantasy heroines of all times.

"People lie, Nona: they steal, they cheat, they’re unfaithful. People hurt you, they let you down. They sell you out.’
‘It doesn’t mean I have to be like that.’"

No, she’s not. And you can’t but love her.

Unlike the previous two books in the series, which kind of integrate the past and the present narratives, (most significantly in the early portions of Red Sister) this book quite clearly sets out two plotlines, one following directly on from the ending of Grey Sister, following Nona and Zole, while the other takes place much later in the narrative. Since I never really warmed to Zole as a character (I’m not sure you’re supposed to…) I tended to prefer the latter of the two ‘timezones’ but I’d say both are strong. If you favour the side characters more than you do Nona - which I think a lot of people do - I think you’ll probably feel a similar way.

Because it is the side characters that really made this series what it was. The last third/half of this book is most certainly a testament to that, there are some truly wonderful moments between the characters with whom readers have fallen in love through the previous two books. One such moment made me actually gasp out loud it was so amazing - I must have confused people on the train.

I will say, there are quite a few things left unanswered by the end of this book, those looking for an explanation of every metaphysic within the world might find themselves a little lacking, but I don’t think that has ever been the point of this world. So much of the way the world is understood is passed down through the years to the point at which our characters encounter the information - there’s something quite special about not having an exact explanation for everything that happens. Well, that’s how I saw it anyway.

This book was a five star read for me, because I had that gut feeling of ‘oh yes I loved that’ when I finished reading it, but there were a couple of elements I think needed a slightly better focus - there’s a little bit of a ‘bury your gays’ towards the end which I think does work for the story but was perhaps not the wisest move as reviewers tend to react poorly to it. I would have also liked some of the romance/relationships to be a little more explicit - if you can get a hold of the short story ‘Bound’ that takes place between Grey Sister and Holy Sister I think that goes some way to filling that gap, but I’d like it if that were built into the book. Hey, I can be utterly obsessed with a book and still call it out a little - that’s fine right?

So yes, overall I loved this book, even though there were a couple of things I would change it’s an incredibly satisfying and exciting ending to a great trilogy. Of the three, I think Red Sister has to be my favourite, though this book has some of my favourite scenes and moments. If you’re wanting to start this series I would thoroughly recommend it - in particular the audiobooks (I have the one for Red Sister and it is great).

My rating: 5/5 stars

I received a free copy of this book from the author. All opinions are my own.

Holy Sister publishes on April 4th 2019.

I was invited to read and review this title by the publisher. Many thanks to Emma Pickard and Harper-Voyager for the ARC - you made my day, week, year...possibly lifetime!

It's no secret that <i>Holy Sister</i> is one of my most anticipated releases of 2019. Mark Lawrence's books have been an automatic buy since I read <i>Prince of Thorns</i>. I'm pleased to report that Holy Sister does not disappoint, either as a book in its own right, or as the conclusion to an epic trilogy. This is the sort of female led fantasy that I want to see more of.

Once again, almost all the characters are female, which, if you spent your childhood, teens and twenties scraping around SFF for a female lead who wasn't an accessory/ girl in fridge/ sexy lamp or otherwise deprived of agency and actual character, is a breath of fresh air. It's never depicted as a political decision either - these are simply the best characters for telling the story. They are all well rounded, flawed and fully formed individuals who have their own agendas. Nona and her friends are very engaging, and Nona herself has grown as a person since Red Sister in a way that is believable and relatable. One of the things I like most about her competence and wisdom have grown proportionately to her hard work and struggling. Nona should be an anti hero but she's not because in the end she is motivated by loyalty and compassion. She acknowledges and conquers the less savoury aspects of her nature, accepting and harnessing them. In many ways this trilogy is the ultimate story of found family, and by the end the reader sees as Nona does, that every life is connected to hers and they all have value.

The world building was superb. I would have expected nothing less tbh but I'll admit I was nervous about how likely it was to be wrapped up satisfactorily, when there was such a potentially huge issue to overcome. No details but it is a satisfactory ending with all important major and minor threads gathered up and tied off. Talking of threads, this has such a great magic system. Plausibly pseudo sciencey in some respects but still visually and logically able to stand up against magic systems in the best high fantasy.

I mention this in every review of this series but as I've said before, Lawrence does an excellent job of portraying a 'convent girl' dynamic. (Speaking from experience). I'll expand on that with the statement that he does an excellent job of portraying female friendships with all the nuance, subtlety, pushes and pulls of a community of women living together in close quarters. (So other male writers may wish to take note - it absolutely can be done by you guys too. I can't imagine settling for less from you in future :) )

There's so much I could say about this book - I inhaled it in two days - but I would be venturing close to spoiler territory and it's better if you just read it. The action is excellent. The themes are strong, thought provoking and emotionally intelligent. And the way the sub plots fit the main plot, not just of this episode but the entire series, was perfect. I'm a little obsessed with structure so that made me very happy.

I loved this book. It's the best in the series so far. I'm feeling bereft that it's over and I can't wait to reread them all. Dark fantasy at its finest and most cunning. Highly recommend.