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Zusatztext "Riley launches her most ambitious and exciting writing project to date...…a labyrinth of seductive time-switch stories! the enchanting brand of novel writing which has made Riley one of the best women’s fiction authors on the market… An epic start to an epic series." Informationen zum Autor Lucinda Riley Klappentext "Maia D'Apliáese and her five sisters gather together at their childhood home, 'Atlantis'--a fabulous, secluded castle situated on the shores of Lake Geneva--having been told that their beloved father, who adopted them all as babies, has died. Each of them is handed a tantalizing clue to her true heritage--a clue which takes Maia across the world to a crumbling mansion in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Once there, she begins to put together the pieces of her story and its beginnings"--The Seven Sisters 1 I will always remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I heard that my father had died. I was sitting in the pretty garden of my old school friend’s townhouse in London, a copy of The Penelopiad open but unread in my lap, enjoying the June sun while Jenny collected her little boy from kindergarten. I felt calm and I appreciated what a good idea it had been to get away. When my cell phone rang and I glanced at the screen and saw it was Marina, I was studying the burgeoning clematis unfolding its fragile pink buds, giving birth to a riot of color, encouraged by its sunny midwife. “Hello, Ma, how are you?” I said, hoping she could hear the sun’s warmth in my voice. “Maia, I . . .” Marina paused, and in that instant I knew something was dreadfully wrong. “What is it?” “Maia, there’s no other way to tell you this, but your father had a heart attack here at home yesterday afternoon, and in the early hours of this morning, he . . . passed away.” I remained silent as a million different and ridiculous thoughts passed through my mind. The first one being that Marina, for some unknown reason, had decided to play some form of a tasteless joke on me. “You’re the first of the sisters I’ve told, Maia, as you’re the eldest. And I wanted to ask you whether you would prefer to tell the rest of your sisters yourself, or leave it to me.” “I . . .” Still no words would form coherently on my lips, as I began to realize that Marina, dear, beloved Marina, the woman who had been the closest thing to a mother I’d ever known, would never tell me this if it weren’t true. So it had to be. And at that moment, my entire world shifted on its axis. “Maia, please, tell me you’re all right. This really is the most dreadful phone call I’ve ever had to make, but what else could I do? God only knows how the other girls are going to take it.” It was then that I heard the suffering in her voice and understood she’d needed to tell me as much for her own sake as mine. So I switched into my normal comfort zone, which was to comfort others. “Of course I’ll tell my sisters if you’d prefer, Ma, although I’m not positive where they all are. Isn’t Ally away training for a regatta?” And, as we continued to discuss where each of my younger sisters was, as though we needed to get them together for a birthday party rather than to mourn the death of our father, the entire conversation took on a sense of the surreal. “When should we plan on having the funeral, do you think? What with Electra being in Los Angeles and Ally somewhere on the high seas, surely we can’t think about it until next week at the earliest,” I said. “Well”—I heard the hesitation in Marina’s voice—“perhaps the best thing is for you and I...
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Lucinda Riley
