Red Sister (ARC Review)
- Author: Mark Lawrence
- Published: April 4th, 2017
- Publisher: Ace Books
- Rating: 5/5
Book Synopsis
At the convent of Sweet Mercy, young girls are raised to be killers. In some few children the old blood shows, gifting rare talents that can be honed to deadly or mystic effect. But even the mistresses of sword and shadow don’tr truly understand what they have purchased when Nona Grey is brought to their halls.
A bloodstained child of nine falsely accused of murder, guilty of worse, Nona is stolen from the shadow of the noose. It takes ten years to educate a Red Sister in the ways of blade and fist, but under Abbess Glass’s care there is much more to learn than the arts of death. Among her class Nona finds a new family and new enemies.
WOW! I LOVED THIS BOOK!! yep that’s pretty much it, nah I’m here to gush about every page in this book I don’t know if you can tell but this is my first time reading anything from Mark Lawrence and I was not disappointed at all. We get some badass nuns in this story and I’m all for it I want to join this convent of badass killer nuns, seriously sign me up!
This story is divided in two part Red Class and Grey Class, at the beginning of the book we get the explanation of classes and races.
Races:
Gerant: distinguished by their great size
Hunska: known for their speed, dark-haired, dark-eyed
Marjal: have the ability to tap into lesser magics
Quantal: have the ability to walk the Path and work greater magics.
Classes:
Red Class: age 9-12
Grey Class: age 13-14
Mystic Class: age 15-16
Holy Class: 17-19
The first part of the story follows a 9 year old girl named Nona Grey, she was sold by the town’s people and later on is accused of murdered and is about to be hanged for it but was saved by Sister Abbess Glass. Now Nona is not sure why she’s being saved but follows sister Abbess Glass to the Sweet Mercy Convent. There we get introduced to the other nuns and novices that become Nona’s friends, we see Nona take her combat and poisoning classes but that’s not all we get I can’t really get into it otherwise I’ll be spoiling it for you.
the characters and the story is just amazing, it was easy to connect with Nona and some of the other characters as well, even the nuns. We get some magic here that in my opinion was done perfectly not over the top crazy magic, when Nona is learning we are learning as well (well not except for the combat part).
The second half of the book the Gray (my favorite part) gives us more action and we really get to see who Nona’s real friend is. I loved everything about this story.
Final Thoughts
This story is a coming of age story with a big emphasis on trust and friendship (and badass nuns!) the world-building is fantastic and the characters are all amazingly written even the ones that you’re supposed to hate. I love the writing and the pace of the story and now I need to pick up his other works, definitely hooked.
and can we get book #2 really really soon please!!!
P.S. Thank you to the publisher and Author for providing me with an ARC for review.
Chapters We Love 