Grey Sister by Mark Lawrence is the second book in the Book of the Ancestor series.
Nona Grey entered Sweet Mercy a starving little girl, full of rage and secrets. Now she’s made friends, improved her body and mind, and has moved from red to grey class. The further Nona gets in her studies the closer her decision to choose a path comes. She must choose to “take the red of a Martial Sister, the grey of a Sister of Discretion, the blue of a Mystic Sister or the simple black of a Bride of the Ancestor and a life of prayer and service.”
All Nona wants is to complete her studies and make Sweet Mercy her home, but assassins, inquisitions, betrayal, revenge, rage… so much rage could shake her from the path and take away all she loves.
Will Nona be able to see through the anger and grief that threaten to destroy her? Or will she lose herself and risk those around her?
I just love this series. It fun, complex, brutal and captivating in all the right places. It is also SO hard to explain to people though! I swear the other day I told someone that this series take place in a world covered in ice, except for a shrinking area along the equator and that the story follows nuns and nuns in training–think Hogwarts meets Mortal Combat! HA!
I love the setting of this book–a world slowly being swallowed by ice and hints to a lost age that feels awfully familiar. The world building is just fantastic. I love Sweet Mercy and the factions of nuns. There’s also this mystery, a darkness hidden on the fringes that adds another layer to the story.
I gave the first book 5 stars and this one 4.5. The only reason this one loses a half star is because of a very long sequence of battles about 3/4 of the way through that felt a little dragged out to me–even though they were AWESOME! I just felt like the story stalled a little bit so that a little extra butt kicking could be added. But who doesn’t love a good butt kicking.
This is one of those series I just keep telling people about. Grey Sister gets 4.5 stars from me!
That’s all for now!
-M-