While the ending to The Pearl Sister was quite perfect, I could have happily kept reading on, it was that good. Told through a breath-taking panorama of captivating stories, their fates and fortunes are painted on a broad canvas and all created from a vast sweep of the imagination. Kitty’s tangled history and its equally snarled connections to CeCe’s origins unravel at a leisurely pace, with much lore about pearl fishing, aboriginal culture, and Australian race relations adding interest. Riley is survived by Stephen, their two children, Leonora and Kit, the two children of her first marriage, Harry and Bella, and three stepchildren, Olivia, William and Max, as well as her mother and her sister, Georgia. Dropping out of art college, CeCe watches as Star, her beloved sister, distances herself to follow her new love, leaving her completely alone.

In desperation, she decides to flee England and discover her past; the only clues she has are a black-and-white photograph and the name of a woman pioneer who lived in Australia over one hundred years ago.I forced my thoughts back to Pa Salt, because given my ingrained fear of flying, thinking about the moment I heard he’d died was – in a weird way – comforting. Intermittently below me, there were small clusters of twinkling lights indicating human habitation, each light containing a life, a family, a set of friends .

Every corner of the world has become a thrilling new adventure with master storyteller Lucinda Riley…Told through a breathtaking panorama of captivating stories, their fates and fortunes are painted on a broad canvas and all created from a vast sweep of the imagination. Then – with settings ranging from the Beatrix Potter-era Lake District, London Edwardian society and the Scottish Highlands, to Thailand, Australia, Spain, South America, New York and Kenya – came The Shadow Sister (2016), The Pearl Sister (2017), The Moon Sister (2018) and The Sun Sister (2019). By the time I had finished the first chapter of The Pearl Sister, I fully acknowledged that I am a fool and I should have just placed my faith in Lucinda months ago and read the darned book as soon at it came out!After being spotted in a ballet class there by a television director, she was cast as Dora, one of the Bastable children, in a 1982 BBC serialisation of E Nesbit’s children’s novel The Story of the Treasure Seekers.

Kitty herself was divine, a true pioneering woman, and I could see a wonderful symmetry between her and CeCe in terms of their capacity to care about others.

Whatever happens to you in life, darling CeCe, the one thing that can never be taken away from you is your talent.