The Sea Sisters: Gripping - a twist filled thriller

Product Information

Swimming at Night is a breath of fresh air. This book is like swimming at night beneath the stars. While I tended to lean more towards Mia, I still loved Katie as well. The reason that I loved Mia more was because she was a wild child. She threw caution to the wind and just acted on impluse. Just for the record I am more like Katie, however I want to be a little more like Mia. This is why I did love Mia. I could live vicariously through Mia. Just like Katie did by reading and expericing everything and place that Mia went on her travels. It was great getting to see Katie open up and let loose. I felt like I really got to know the two sisters. Tutto il racconto gira attorno a questo diario ed alle vite delle due sorelle narrate su due piani temporali differenti, così diverse, ma in qualche modo collegate proprio dal diario.

Despite their differences Katie’s world is crushed when she learns that her sister Mia’s body has been discovered in Bali in an apparent suicide. Although they have not been close for a long time Katie is positive that Mia would not take her own life. So much so that she makes the decision to travel to Bali to retrace Mia’s journey and uncover the truth. At first I didn't like any of the characters and I was really hoping that it would change and that they would become more complex as the story unfolded. But as the story continued, and more characters entered the story, I just found that none of them appealed to me at all, and this made the story feel almost stagnant. I also grew a little tired of all the plot "twists" which, in my mind, were all lazy, easy options for trying to add drama into the story and ended up verging on the ridiculous as it emerged that eventually they'd all ended up sleeping with each other. The format of the story works well & Mia's sense of searching for who she is comes over well but while I liked the idea of Katie using Mia's journal as guide to following her journey, I found it a stretch to think she could be so disciplined in her reading of it - maybe she just has much more will power than me! I enjoyed this book from start to finish. It was very easy to read, meaning I didn't have to struggle to get to know the characters, which can be a challenge when reading a book of this genre. I empathised with both Katie and Mia, and there were just enough supporting characters to make this a very believable story. I liked the concept of sisterhood and the realism that the author brought to the complex relationship sisters often have. Its a unique connection. Katie's only clues lie buried within Mia's trusty journal, which she used to document her entire life. Katie decides to follow in Mia's footsteps, following the exact same route her sister did, to discover what lead her to jump from the cliff top. Whilst reading the journal, Katie discovers some devastating secrets, and questions - did she really know her sister at all?As Katie travels to Bali, the chapters alternate between her experiences and Mia’s entries in the travel journal. It’s an interesting device, which in fact was the inspiration behind Lucy Clarke’s debut novel. Clarke is a compulsive traveller herself – her husband is a professional windsurfer, and every winter the couple spend as much time as possible abroad.

The beginning of the novel was okay but when it switched to Mia's "before" story, I hated the way it was written. I think it would have been better if Mia's POV had been given in the form of her diary entries. Mia was hard to like, so I started to skim her POVs. It was pretty obvious what had happened between her and Katie's boyfriend. Also that revelation about her father not being her real father but her uncle, and that her real father killed himself in his 20s ...bah! By following Mia’s journey as well as following her journal a day at a time Katie starts to uncover secrets that may answer the questions that are causing so much pain. I really enjoyed seeing both sister's POV chapters. Not only does it gives us insight into both of the women's thoughts and emotions, it helps to keep the story moving at a fast pace. Both women's journey in this book, is both a physical and emotional one. They are both learning things about themselves, their shared history, and about each other. I seem to be the odd one out with my rating but I couldn't bring myself to give higher than 2 stars. The writing was lovely but the story was weak. The coincidences were too great and the fact that Katie was reading Mia's diary only when she went to the same place was just too unbelievable! The fact that both Mia and Noah had damaged father/child relationships, damaged sibling relationships, guilt issues was too much for credibility. This may be set in sunny places like Bali and Maui but underneath lies the darker story of two sisters...deeply moving" - Star

There are some currents in the relationship between sisters that run so dark and so deep, it’s better for the people swimming on the surface never to know what’s beneath . . . This book has many themes: love of a sibling, friendship, family, family secrets, romantic love, being brave, betrayal, misunderstanding, sacrifice and forgiveness. It’s a thrilling and perceptive debut which captures the complex relationship between sisters and loss at its rawest. Trust us, you won’t be able to put it down." - Cosmopolitan

That said, I was reasonably gripped and wanted to keep reading on. One of the biggest things I enjoyed about it was the travel element and the description of the places that the sisters has travelled. The author has been to all these places herself and it shows; her travel writing is very evocative. Also, ultimately, I just wanted to know how Mia had died as my curiosity had been peaked. What she discovers changes everything. But will her search for the truth push their sisterly bond – and Katie – to breaking point? A good & engrossing read but somehow feel it fell short if its potential. The story focuses on the relationship between two sisters, Katie the "good sister & perfect daughter" & Mia an independent free spirit, who at the drop of a hat takes off to the other side of the world to go travelling, where she dies under mysterious circumstances. Katie on finding her sisters journal decides to copy Mia's journey & discover the truth behind her death. An interesting basis for a story if not wholly original....& I think that was what made me dissatisfied, the story was a bit predictable - for example, the reason Mia left so suddenly was blatently obvious from the start!

Con queste parole inizia il diario di viaggio di Mia, la cui morte a Bali, durante questo viaggio, viene annunciata dalla polizia inglese alla sorella maggiore Katie. Katie’s world is shattered by the news that her headstrong and bohemian younger sister, Mia, has been found dead at the bottom of a cliff in Bali. The authorities say that Mia jumped—that her death was a suicide.

People go traveling for two reasons: because they are searching for something, or they are running from something. Katie’s carefully structured world is shattered by the news that her headstrong younger sister, Mia, has been found dead in Bali – and the police claim it was suicide. I'm pretty conflicted on this book. Initially I enjoyed the premise: Mia sets off traveling after the death of her mother and dies whilst in Bali, a country that was never on her original route. The authorities tell her sister Katie, her only remaining family, that she committed suicide but her sister knows this cant be true and tries to retrace her steps using Mia's travel journal to uncover what really happened.Clarke always keeps a travel journal, and was intrigued by what would happen if such a diary, with its ‘smears of sunscreen and grains of sand’, was read by someone else. What would it reveal about the writer? La gente viaggia per due motivi: perché cerca qualcosa o perché scappa da qualcosa. Nel mio caso sono veri entrambi. This book is a perfect summer read. It’s emotional and moving and set in beautiful sunny locations – California, Maui, Australia and Bali. The plot of this reminded me of Sister by Rosamund Lupton - the relationship between Katie and Mia is similar (sensible older sister, flighty younger sister who is something of a bohemian spirit) and the basic outline of the plot is the same (the younger sister is found dead and it's ruled to be suicide; the older sister doesn't believe this can be true and sets out to discover what really happened). In fact, I think the two books are likely to appeal to the same audience - which perhaps accounts for the UK title being changed to include the word 'sisters' - but The Sea Sisters does something more interesting with the premise.