Red Sister by Mark Lawrence

"The international bestselling author of the Broken Empire and the Red Queen's War trilogies begins a stunning epic fantasy series about a secretive order of holy warriors ... At the Convent of Sweet Mercy, young girls are raised to be killers. In some few children the old bloods show, gifting rare talents that can be honed to deadly or mystic effect. But even the mistresses of sword and shadow don't 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. Despite the security and isolation of the convent, Nona's secret and violent past finds her out, drawing with it the tangled politics of a crumbling empire. Her arrival sparks old feuds to life, igniting vicious struggles within the church and even drawing the eye of the emperor himself. Beneath a dying sun, Nona Grey must master her inner demons, then loose them on those who stand in her way"--

Executive Summary: I'm a sucker for the magic school trope and I really loved this book. I kept making time just to get in an extra chapter here and there so it was a pretty easy 5 stars for me.Audiobook: I believe this is the first book I've listened to that's been narrated by Heather O'Neil. I thought she did a good job. She speaks clearly and with good inflection. She also does a few voices. Audio is definitely a good choice for this series.Full ReviewI've owned a copy of [b:Prince of Thorns 9579634 Prince of Thorns (The Broken Empire, #1) Mark Lawrence https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1327917754s/9579634.jpg 14466531] for a few years now, but still haven't read it. Why? I kind of got burned out on “grimdark” fantasy and I've heard the main character isn't very likeable. When [b:Prince of Fools 18693743 Prince of Fools (The Red Queen's War, #1) Mark Lawrence https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1385072473s/18693743.jpg 25595312] came out, I skipped that too, because I wanted to read the original series first since they were set in the same world.What was my excuse with this book, completely unconnected to his previous two series came out? Habit I guess? I can't speak to his other books, but from what I understand this book is far less grimdark than the previous two. Either way, I absolutely loved it. I was sucked in right from the beginning with one of the best first lines I've ever read:“IT IS IMPORTANT, when killing a nun, to ensure that you bring an army of sufficient size.“I'm a big sucker for magic school tropes. This one is pretty different from the rest. First of all it's set in a convent (as may be evident by the above quote). Secondly the girls are more akin to warrior monks than they are mages.I like a well defined magic system. This seems to have the possibility of one, but we've learned very little of how the magic works. It is definitely intriguing, and I hope we learn a lot more in the rest of the series.I also thought the characters were excellent too. Nona is a girl off to a bad start in life. This doesn't appear to be because she's a bad person, but rather than she's unfortunate enough to be put in bad situations with an unwillingness to sit passively by. The supporting characters are pretty great too. All of the full nuns have new names based on inanimate objects. From Abbess Glass, who feels that lying is totally fine so long as it serves the right purpose to Sister Kettle who serves as somewhat of a mentor to Nona. There is a good variety of novice girls, each with different backgrounds and personalities that make them fully fleshed out into an interesting group to follow along with Nona as she “levels up”.Like many magic school books, this book has some of the usual tropes. Rival girls who get in Nona's way simply because of her background or abilities. However while this book does touch on some of those tropes, it doesn't dwell in them.Much of this book is learning more about the world, training up be a badass, and wondering just what happened to end up Nona for her to end up where we find her at the beginning of the book.There are a few interludes, including the one at the beginning that taunt the reader with hints of what's to come, while not really revealing too much about how we're going to get there. I'm really looking forward to finding out.I'm not sure if my enjoyment of this book will get me to finally go back and check out [b:Prince of Thorns 9579634 Prince of Thorns (The Broken Empire, #1) Mark Lawrence https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1327917754s/9579634.jpg 14466531] but I'm more inclined to do so than I was before picking this up. I suspect however that I'll enjoy this series far more than that one.

4 1/2 stars

I absolutely loved Red Sister, and it's currently not just my favorite 2017 release but my favorite new-to-me book read this year (I reread some pretty fantastic books). The highlight of the novel is the main protagonist, Nona, who is brought to train in a convent after nearly having been hanged for murder. She's compelling from the very beginning due to her fierceness and drive to protect her friends, and she's made all the more captivating because of her reticence when it comes to her past and her abilities. In addition to Nona herself, I also enjoyed the friendships, the dialogue, the badass nuns, the setting, and the writing. It could be a little slow paced due to classes filled with exposition, but this wasn't a huge problem for me since the world was interesting and the dialogue sharp rather than rote and bland.

Full Review on My Website

Will update with a review once I finish the series

A definite 3.5. I didn't love it enough to give a 4 😔

This series has literally taken over the fantasy readers community by storm and I heard so many of my favorite bloggers and booktubers gush about it, that I thought I would give it a try. I really love reading about female assassins, so Red Sister already had that going for me; but it's also on a more darker side than I usually read, so my expectations were reasonable. I have to say that this book really surprised me in places, while not holding my attention for parts - but I will try to articulate what I actually thought about it.

The writing took some getting used to. I haven't read any of the other popular series by the same author, so his writing style and way with words felt unfamiliar and I had to reread sentences sometimes to get the gist of it. However, the story also has one of the best / most memorable opening sequences and I just knew I had to read further. The world is also not fully realized from the beginning - we only get to know tidbits about the empire, it's history, it's enemies and the power hierarchy through some conversations and incidents that occur. This makes me feel like I still don't know much about this world but I'm sure the author will expand it in the next one. We do however get a lot of information about the four tribes which practice magic and I'm quite excited to see more displays of the power in the series. The story also mainly features the training that occurs within the Sweet Mercy convent - which involves a lot of lectures on religion, spirituality (or the Path as they call it), hand to hand combat and other forms of fighting and academics - but it takes up almost 70% of the book, so it felt quite repetitive and sometimes maybe even boring.

What makes up for the slightly repetitive story is the eclectic group of women in this book. Nona is probably around the age of 10 when the book starts, but we already know that she is a survivor and has seen too much for her young age. We see flashbacks from her earlier life and we realize why she doesn't think that she deserves love or acceptance, because she considers herself a monster. This makes her very very secretive, keeping everything very close to her chest, only divulging them when the time is right. However, despite being sold as a child and then almost executed for murder, she is truly very loyal and considers the bond of friendship sacred. The convent is full of other young women, some allies, some rivals, some bullies - everyone training together and when anyone attacks their faith from the outside, they all fight together too. Their teacher nuns are also a diverse group - caring to indifferent to maybe cruel to even fanatic - but the one thread that holds everyone is sisterhood.

The essence of this book is the strength of sisterhood, friendship and found family. All of these women - young and old - despite their differing ideas or alliances, will always stand by each other and that comes through in every interaction. And that's why one particular instance really came as utter shock and I can't wait to read more about the repercussions. The world is also casually diverse and it's not made a big deal about - we have one f/f couple among the teachers and Nona is hinted at being bisexual, so it would be nice to see this explored more in the next books.

Everyone seems to love this book a lot, so I don't think I need to recommend this one. It has strong characterizations, the absolute best opening, middle and ending action sequences and the plot is interesting enough to make me want to read the next book. However, I got a little bored in the middle and I would have loved to know more about the world. Let's see what Grey Sister has to offer.