Holy Sister cover art

Holy Sister

Book of the Ancestor, Book 3

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Holy Sister

By: Mark Lawrence
Narrated by: Helen Duff
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About this listen

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.

HOLY SISTER completes the Book of the Ancestor trilogy that began with RED SISTER and GREY SISTER. A ground-breaking series, it has established Mark Lawrence as one of the most exciting new voices in modern speculative fiction.

©2019 Mark Lawrence (P)2019 HarperCollins Publishers Fantasy Fiction Science Fiction & Fantasy Young Adult Heartfelt War

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Critic reviews

"An excellent writer." (George R.R. Martin)

"Dark, passionate, tense, with a female hero anyone could relate to - I was utterly fascinated! This is no pretty, flowery tale, but one of vastly different people struggling to survive when a hostile government comes to power." (Number one New York Times best-selling author Tamora Pierce)
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I love this series of books. They keep you hooked all the way through and this book is no different. would highly recommend.

Another brilliant book

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This is a really enjoyable trilogy of books, it gave me a slight Harry Potter vibe with he girls growing up together, but just with more murder and death.

Helen Duff does a great job at narration, the reviews saying she can only do a few accents are being petty, she brought every character to life in a nice way and it was easy to differentiate between them.

5 Stars all round.

P.S. I've put this review on each book as they all deserve more 5 start ratings.

Great Trilogy

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Struggled with this last book. Didn't enjoy it as much as Red Sister and Grey Sister.

A long ending

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The nuns have managed to escape from Sherzal's palace with the help of Zole. Now Zole and Nona take the shipheart to Zole's home on the ice. This is where the narrative switches to three years later. I found the switching of timelines unsettling and spoilt the book somewhat for me, while some listeners may not have found so. For this reason I have marked it down a little.

Good Ending

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keeps you spellbound! Magical story of friendship and love, war and loss. Nona is just such an interesting and unique mc.

Friendship and love

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Probably the greatest trilogy of all time, beautifully narrated, and culminating with the epic Holy Sistet.

Truly Epic

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First things first: the narrator is absolutely superb. Genuinely good, clear accents, emotive delivery ... just fantastic. I'll be looking out some of the other stories they've narrated.

A narrator is nothing without words to speak, though. These are some of the best words. I was in tears for about the last third of this book. The whole series has been engaging, and I can see so much possibility in the world/universe that Mark Lawrence has created - both past and future, to make more epic forays into the world of Abeth.

The series has been sci-fi-fantasy brilliance

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It was well worth listening to this book but it did take a while to follow all the various story lines for the various characters.
I'm glad I persevered, but reckon it would have be easier to read.

Took a while to follow via audible but....

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A wonderfully well crafted journey from behind to end. A very well crafted world with some great characters and superb story. A lot to love. Narration was brilliant, some superb accents possibly the best i heard so far.

Superb enda, a great series

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Having just finished Holy Sister, all I can say is that I am a little upset that Mark Lawrence is one of those rare authors that doesn’t drag a series on for an uncountable number of books. Ordinarily, I hate those massive series, but I really enjoyed the Book of the Ancestor trilogy and would have loved it to continue. That’s not even a selfish ‘I don’t want this to end’ thing. It’s more a the world itself is in a pretty delicate, on the edge of a knife kind of balance, so I am curious to see what happens next etc …

The narration from Helen Duff is perhaps some of my favourite narration I have ever had from an audio book and I have a total listening time over the years of ‘3 months, 20 days, 8 hours and 33 minutes’ according to my audible stats. So that’s saying something. She has an incredible talent for voices and each character has their own unique voice. I’ll certainly be keeping an eye out for future fantasy titles with her narration. I’m only a little bit in love with her voices for Nona, Arabella and Clera. What can I say, I’m a sucker for an accent.

There is one slight negative (very slight) and that’s the fact that. Unlike book two, Holy Sister doesn’t have a little ‘what happened last time’ bit at the front. It’s not overly necessary due to Mark being a workhorse that gets a book out every year, but a little recap really helped me in the second book and I kind of took a short while to get re-focused on this one.
There were no negatives, as far as I could see, where the story was concerned. A good portion of the book is set in the present and a fair bit is relayed through flashbacks of when Nona and Zole were making their escape. The flashbacks worked really well and slid into the main narrative seamlessly.

In Holy Sister the events of Red Sister and Grey Sister come to a head and Mark Lawrence’s version of Endgame ensues. The battle scenes are excellent and the strength of the characters radiates out during these scenes, giving them that little bit of extra awesomeness. We are also treated to learning the extent of Abbess Glass’ long-game style thinking. Well, maybe. I can well imagine that genius of a woman still had all sorts planned for the future that we’ll never get to see.

Speaking of the characters, everyone from Nona to Arabella and even Clera, get continuous character development that just adds so much richness to the reading/listening experience. Holy Sister really felt like a fitting end to the Book of the Ancestor Trilogy. I have already added it to my ‘must listen again’ list.

PS

If you’re like me and want more from the Book of the Ancestor series and was entirely unaware of the short story (Bound) then its best to read it before Holy Sister. Sadly I only learned of its existence after finishing Holy Sister. Ah well, I doubt reading it out of order will lessen the enjoyment.

A brilliant end to a brilliant trilogy

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