I wasn’t expecting anything going into “A Throne for Sisters”, aside from a full pilot novel. Instead, I found a pilot novel for a series compiled of several books with similar page counts, which I surmise are executed akin to this one: ending right at the climax, rather than containing a full story.

And that’s not even the worst part, but…I’ve noticed this is a trend, and it’s most common with self-published authors. Despite the editing trumping that of traditional publishers, self-published authors selling series on Amazon basically create a “Breaking Dawn”-sized story and break it up into several smaller parts. After querying Google, I find the reason behind this is money. Short fiction, or fiction with fewer pages, told across several eBooks in a series, sells quicker and thus puts more money in the author’s pocket. Still, it feels less like the authors are writing because they love writing and more like they’re writing only to sell, creating books that result in faster, easier money.

While I’m all for authors making money, I’m not into this and would much rather receive a full reading experience rather than a half-arsed one.

Thusly, my second major issue.

A Throne for Sisters by Morgan Rice
Series: A Throne for Sisters #1
Published by Self-published on 6 October, 2017
Genre: Fantasy, Fiction, Romance, Young adult
# pages: 172
Source: Amazon
Goodreads

Orphan sisters Sophia (17) and Kate (15) leave their horrific orphanage only to go separate ways to follow their hearts.

The story was executed quite poorly.

There are two sisters, and each of their stories goes like so:

1. Sisters separate/go their own way to achieve their dreams.
2. Girl meets boy, boy falls madly in love with girl.
3. All of this happens in less than one week.

The oldest sister, Sophia, fails the Bechdel test miserably; there’s not a moment that goes by when she isn’t thinking of some man. After all, it’s everything she wants — she has no other purpose. If you removed the romance, you wouldn’t have the POV of two sisters, just Kate (youngest).

There was so much potential, but it’s all squandered by the author in the series pilot because have these two young adults whose luck, as one reviewer pointed out, is too good to be true. Because of telepathy, they’re able to get most anything they want. They don’t quite run into any trouble for the bulk of the book. They have few faults, if any.

It’s just not realistic, and that’s what hurts the book most.

Like, come on. You can’t expect me to believe a young woman was actually able to get everything she needed to sneak into ball, actually sneak into said ball, find a comrade, and get the best prince to fall in love with her within one…night? Real life, and even fantasy books, are not like those of of Disney classics — Cinderella is unrealistic enough as it is.

It would have been better if it was sold as a retelling of the classic tale, but then the entire story would need rewriting. “A Throne for Sisters” feels as though, despite the few typos, Rice wrote the story as she went and changed little in the succeeding drafts of it.

There’s also the ridiculous beauty of Sophia, who is punished at her orphanage for being too beautiful, and the idea that the two sisters are the only ones with telepathy. Readers later find a total of four known telepaths, though we’re stuck with just knowing about the actual whereabouts of the two sisters. Supposedly, telepaths are an endangered species due to the powerless people distrusting their abilities — so it would make more sense, to me, if there was a Shadow Children situation going on; there are always statistics, akin to how autism diagnoses are “on the rise” (which is only because more resources are available).

I’m quite disappointed, especially since I love plots with tons of potential. This book is highly quotable. It’s flooded with potential, but squandered by the romance and unrealistic execution.

I do not currently know whether I will read anymore books in this series.