Book 4 of The Seven Sisters Series
When Celaeno (CeCe) D’Aplièse feels like she’s lost her other half, her sister Asterope (Star) to a new family in the country, she leaves England. She feels like a failure for having left her art college, and she feels alone. She decides to go to Australia, because that’s where the coordinates Pa Salt has left her lead. On the way to Australia, she has a stop over in Thailand. Initially she had planned to be there for only one day, but she ends up staying a few weeks. When she gets caught in a rainstorm (she hides in a sacred cave and is thrown out), a man called Ace saves her. He’s staying in a gorgeous villa, hidden away. The only time he goes out is late at night, and he offers her a room in the house. They have a wonderful time together and the last night they have their picture taken together on CeCe’s camera. One of the security guards offers to get her prints – and when CeCe lands in Australia, she is greeted by a load of messages on her phone. It turns out that the picture of her and Ace has ended up in all the newspapers because he’s an infamous embezzler. CeCe doesn’t believe he’s responsible for what he’s accused of though.
In Australia, she meets Chrissie, an aboriginal girl and goes on the trail of Kitty Mercer McBride and learns about her family history. She meets her grandfather, Francis Abraham, who is an aboriginal artist who grew up in the Hermannsburg Mission near Alice Springs with his grandmother who came to live there as well. Francis met Albert Namatjira here who was a great influence on him – though their painting styles were very different. CeCe spends a lot of time with her grandfather, and rediscovers her love for art and creating paintings. Meanwhile, she and Chrissie fall in love.
Kitty McBride accompanies a woman from her father’s church to Australia. One of the woman’s nephews asks her to marry him, while the other nephew (his twin) asks her to wait for him. However, she marries the first one and she stays in Australia.
I really disliked CeCe in the previous book and was pretty sure I was going to hate her in this one too. But she’s showing her vulnerable side and I think she has a lot of (spiritual) growth in this book.
Kitty seems like a wonderful lady who was kind to everyone – no matter who they were. She abhorred the racist things her husband said (as did I) and just seemed like an allround lovely person. I really liked the ending of her story.
Read for the Read Between the Lines Reading Challenge 2026
Prompt 10: A Book Set in Oceania
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️