The Forgotten Sister by Nicola Cornick
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Thank you to the publisher, Graydon House Books, for providing me with an ARC of The Forgotten Sister in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
The Gist
The duality of the narration The Forgotten Sister promised to offer intrigued me greatly. One part historical fiction plus one part contemporary fiction makes for an interesting read for sure.
Throw in the promise of a murder mystery, a ghost and a special gift and I’m all yours.
The Details
I did not particularly like the two main characters. I thought they were both very self-absorbed, but at least they admitted as much and didn’t pretend otherwise.
The problem with a dual narrative is that each chapter swings from one storyline to the other. So, there are constant breaks in the narrative.
This creates a greater challenge in keeping the reader’s interest and attention as well as being able to create characters that are worth our time reading about.
I found that the story kept it very safe with regards to developing the two main characters. Whatever personality trait had been established at the beginning was stayed the same; nothing new was added that could enhance the complexity of the character.
There were also a lot of different elements thrown at the reader right at the beginning that took a long time to either surface again or really get established.
A few interesting snippets are dangled in front of us like a carrot on the stick that are suppose to have us continue to read until it gets to the good part.
The good parts came rather late in The Forgotten Sister. The first half is rather slow moving, had a lot of breaks within one storyline, while the other just kept circling around one point.
It got a little repetitive.
As well, if I hadn’t already been a little familiar with the Tudor reign, the one storyline would have been a quite over my head and confusing.
I thought the writing was very good. It was clear and concise and easy to follow from a technical point of view.
The Verdict
Overall, The Forgotten Sister had a lot of potential and the idea a very good one. I just hoped for a little more focus in the story.
I would suggest it.
About the Author
Nicola Cornick USA Today bestselling author Nicola Cornick has written over thirty historical romances for Harlequin and HQN Books. She has been nominated twice for a RWA RITA Award and twice for the UK RNA Award. She works as a historian and guide in a seventeenth century house. In2006 she was awarded a Masters degree with distinction from Ruskin College, Oxford, where she wrote her dissertation on heroes.
