Red Sister by Mark Lawrence

Red Sister is the story of Nona and her discovery of self. She is a wonderful character and like a sheet of blank paper with three bullet holes through it, she is a blank slate but is also severely defined by several specific moments of torment and horror. Her innate talents are part of her bloodline and have rarely brought her anything but jealousy and distrust from those she counted as friends so when she is thrust into a school dormitory situation she displays a lot of caution exercising her skills. She must also navigate an entirely new set of social cues and customs, learn to read and write and deal with prophesies that she knows nothing about especially any involvement she might have. The reader joins her on this path as well and at times the huge raft of characters, the new magic system and dialogue like “There is line that divides and a line that joins, and they are the same line and the line is a path”, left both me and Nona shaking our heads in joint bewilderment.

I’ve always enjoyed reading books by Mark but this one was particularly satisfying and was a nice change of pace from his previous six books. Firstly we move away from the Broken Empire into a new world with different magic and a very different set of character to anything we’ve seen before. The reader also gets to experience the world from a different perspective with us no longer being sat behind the eyes of the protagonist but a part of her world and able to watch how her and others interact. I would hazard to say that where Jorg was brutal and surprising and Jalan was fun and dastardly, Nona is more interesting and more layered with more to discover than the previous two.

This definitely felt like part of a bigger story, rather than a complete one in it’s own right and I’m okay with that because the quality of the writing is exceptional and more than one character has really taken root in my imagination. There was a few times that expectations were turned on their heads quite deliberately to avoid it turning into a r rated Harriet Potter and this was appreciated and will ensure it stands out from the crowds.

This is another top book from Mark Lawrence and Ace. I only wish they’d release them more often.