The Year of the Series - The Moon Sister + The Pirate King

 After the calamity that was 2020 I didn't want to give myself serious reading goals but I did want to do something to help my book stacks get a little more under control.  I've tried getting rid of the ones I want to read but unfortunately I want to read all the books I own.  So I decided to focus on series.  There are so many I have that I abandoned halfway through or came in halfway and never read the first few.  I made a list of ten series and the next book I had to read in them and will be rolling in new books and series as I go along and catch up.  Here are two reviews from that list that I've read recently.

The Moon Sister (The Seven Sisters #5) by Lucinda Riley - I wasn't sure what to expect going into this one because of all the sisters Tiggy was the one I had the least sense of identity with.  All the other sisters have their distinct personality and role in the family but Tiggy always seemed a bit shadowy and just hard to pin down.  This wasn't my favorite and for the first half I'm not sure if I was really enjoying it though I was caught up in Riley's story telling.  Because it wasn't just in the other books that Tiggy didn't really seem to have much identity it was in this book at first.  It just felt a little overwrought without a character to really connect with even though the setting was a gorgeous (if impoverished) estate in Scotland.  However, when Tiggy finally takes charge of her own destiny and heads to Spain I was well and completely hooked and the book was completely redeemed.  Even the storyline of the past got better.  In the first dives back into the past Lucia had all the personality that Tiggy lacked and leaned the other way into just flat obnoxiousness.  However, as her story went on - I can't say she was redeemed but I felt like I understood her a bit better.  She was who she was for better or worse.  The ending surprised me and while it isn't all nicely wrapped up there is so much hope and happiness I can't help but feel like the future is bright.  This isn't the book I'd start this series with but while I didn't love the first half the last half made up for it.  These books have rather hefty page counts but the audio books are absolutely wonderful so I highly recommend going that route for the whole series and especially this book.  My Rating: Really Liked It!

Pirate King (Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes #11) by Laurie R. King - Mary Russell is the star in this book as she climbs aboard a ship in which a film crew is making a film about a film of the Pirates of Penzance that goes off the rails.  And it doesn't take long before the the film itself goes horribly wrong in a story that tiptoed a bit into the land of farce which is a huge departure from the previous heavily detailed serious books in the series.  While it doesn't have the feel of the previous books it was a lot of fun and I enjoyed seeing Mary in more control of the situation then I feel like I've seen her in previous books.  It's not that she's not been on her own before but in those books her actions were only connected to reconnecting with Holmes whereas here she is definitely in charge.  There are A LOT of characters in this book which got a bit confusing keeping the 13 daughters and 13 pirates and the rest of the cast and crew straight.  Luckily, the majority of them weren't important to the story but it still proved for a few moments that pulled me out of the story as I tried to sort out who was who.  This is an interesting series but not one you could just jump into.  In fact, I feel a bit at a loss with some of the details as it's been close to 20 years since I read the earlier books in the series.  This is a series I'd like to go back and reread from the beginning.  My Rating:  Liked It!