The Seven Sisters Book 1
When their adopted father, Pa Salt, dies, the six D’Aplièse sisters are each left the coordinates of the place of their birth and a letter from Pa Salt. Each of the sisters is named after one of the mythical Pleiades, the daughters of the titan Atlas and the nymph Pleione.
The eldest of the sisters, Maia, starts her search in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where she learns about her great-grandmother Izabela ‘Bel’ Rosa Bonifacio. Before her marriage, Bel spent time in Paris, France, where she fell in love with a sculptor called Laurent Brouilly. Upon her return to Brazil, Bel’s mother falls ill – she decides to take her mother out to the countryside for her convalescence. After her return to Rio de Janeiro, Bel married Gustavo Aires Cabral. A few days after the wedding Laurent came to Brazil, to help construct Paul Landowski’s Christ the Redeemer statue on Corcovado. He and Bel start to have an affair and when he ultimately returns to France, Laurent begs Bel to go with him. Bel’s daughter Beatriz also has a daughter: Cristina Izabela Carvalho: Maia’s biological mother.
While Maia learns about her biological family, she becomes really close to famous author Floriano Quintelas and his daughter Valentina. Maia has been translating Florian’s books from Portuguese into French for a while now so she contacted him to meet up when she got to Brazil.
I could go on and on about the storyline, but I don’t want to spoil the book for you in case you haven’t read it yet. At 628 pages, it is packed with Bel’s and Maia’s history!
I simply adore this book – this is a re-read for me. The first time I read the book I was so enamoured with it, I read the rest of the series in a matter of days (the available books anyway). And then I continued with Lucinda Riley’s other books. She certainly had the gift of telling an excellent story!
This time, the second time I read this book, I still love it as much as the first time around and I can’t wait to re-read the rest of the series.
Read for the Read Between the Lines Reading Challenge 2026
Prompt 50: A Book Set in South America
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️