Authors: Ali Ahearn and Ros Baxter
ISBN: 9780732293130
RRP:$24.99
It seems I really am turning into a big sook in my old age, tissues again, REALLY. Yep, apparently. And that was from the book and not the game of football I caught out of the corner of my eye and had to turn and watch, very nearly end badly. Now, I’m back to get my head back in the book, a few deep breaths and I’ll be fine.
This is a beautifully written book, capturing two extremely different sisters – but are they that different when it really comes down to it? But again, I digress. It really is becoming a habit this evening.
Sister Pact is a book that brings it! But I think the best thing is it was truly an original, in my experience anyway.
Joni and Frances are sisters, at one time inseparable, but all of that changes and we don’t discover why until the end of the book. There are hints, but then there are anti-hints that make you think you are totally off track. This is one set of circumstances that keeps you guessing until the end.
Throughout all of their feuding they retain a relationship with their grandmother – albeit a very separate one. They each have a favourite reality they share with G and when she passes away there’s a surprise in store for everyone. It seems there was more to G than met the eye because she has quite a substantial inheritance to leave the girls – under some very strict conditions.
Enter Endurance Island a torturous reality show that the girls are to enter as a team.
Endurance is one of many traits they are going to require if they are to survive their time on the show.
More than anything else this show is a challenge of self discovery, a test of faith and an intimate stripping back of years of emotional scarring. For Joni and Frankie it is anyway.
The sisters are pushed to their emotional limits and well past the edges of their patience with each other. They travel further and further into the past with each test of their patience with each other. If it comes down to make or break what’s it gonna be?
Anything I say in this next section is going to be pure speculation let me say that right now. I don’t watch reality TV or game shows, they hold no attraction for me.
Endurance Island seems to be very Survivor like, it is set on a deserted tropical island literally littered with hidden cameras, hardly a crevice left unfilmed. The challenges and show structure seem to be based on Survivor – from what I have picked up from ads over the years. The contestants though, they seem to be quite different, unusual even. They are extremely multi-cultural. There are the Japanese game-show contestants, the divorced Aussie farmers, the South American honeymooners, the Irish cousins, the Sorority Sisters; and the feuding English sisters Frankie and Joni.
The game show is a very large part of the story, but really it’s all about Frankie and Joni and the journey that they are on. It may be something they embarked on for the money but it turns out the stakes are much higher than they ever anticipated.
Frankie is together, businesslike and in control. She has always been the reliable one and she doesn’t plan for that to change now. So why has her libido hit hyperdrive?
Joni is none of those things and she still has some issues but she’s been to rock bottom and now she’s on her way back up. It’s time to make some changes and she’s finally in a position to do it.
The characters are real, the locations are vivid and the situations are oh so believable. If you have a sister that you love even when she infuriates you then I’m sure you will get a lot out of this book. If you don’t have a sister then live vicariously through Ali and Ros for a little while and see what it would be like.
Beautiful flow, seamless writing and a credit to the bond you must share. I can’t wait to see what you girls come up with next.
I devour books, vampires and supernatural creatures are my genre of choice but over the past couple of years, I have broadened my horizons considerably. In a nutshell – I love to write! I love interacting with a diverse range of artists to bring you interviews. Perhaps we were perfect before – I LOVE WORDS!