Recent Read: The Sisters of Reckoning
TL,DR: The Sisters of Reckoning is a fantastic follow-up to Charlotte Nicole Davis’ The Good Luck Girls. A wonderful combination of action, hope, tension, and deep emotion. There’s no need to re-read TGLG if your memory is spotty, but newbies to the series should start with Book 1.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Tor Teen for an ARC of this book.
I finished The Sisters of Reckoning with tears in my eyes. This book was an emotional rollercoaster in the best way possible; while I usually try predicting what a writer’s up to, here, I was happy to be along for the ride.
I’d forgotten much of The Good Luck Girls aside from my enjoyment of the story in the two years since reading it. Opening the first page, thus, was a slow re-immersion into the world of the story: favors, raveners, shadows, true names. I savored every moment of it: that brief trill of recognition, that moment of oh, right. There’s a gentleness and seamlessness to the way Davis leads us back into the waters; everything seems natural and unforced, like you’re meeting old childhood friends, not fictional characters.
(If you haven’t read Book 1 yet, just go and read it now! It’s a fantastic read for those who enjoy action-packed stories with diversity and love at their cores. That’s all you need to know – there are spoilers from here on out!)
The Sisters of Reckoning follows the young women of the first book. Sold into Welcome Houses (i.e., brothels) as children, our Good Luck Girls escaped to freedom. While the majority of them have snuck across the border to Ferron, Aster remains behind, working with the Lady Ghosts to save more Good Luck Girls. When a new Welcome House is set to open—with girls as young as 13 now being offered up as “comfort” to the men who seek them—she realizes she must act on an entirely new scale.
Sisters of Reckoning is a tense and heartfelt novel about fighting for what is right against insurmountable odds and the power that we have if we unite against oppression and evil. It’s a stellar sequel to Book 1; I enjoyed Reckoning even more, and recommend it to anyone who enjoyed the first book. There’s also fantastic queer rep in this book that made my heart sing.