Thanks to NetGalley, Thomas & Mercer, and Amazon Publishing for this copy of "Forgotten Sisters."

This was my first time reading a book by author Pelayo and now I'm totally intrigued by her writing style.

It's a retelling of "The LIttle Mermaid" fairy tale and features a historical disaster from Chicago in 1915 which I later searched to find out more about it.

The writing was lyrical, dreamlike, and gothic but also mixed in police detectives investigating current murders plus there was the back story of the sisters' parents recent death.

The story flow was sometimes a little disconnected which was confusing to follow but I thought the second half of the book was much better than the first.

I read this book in one sitting. The book is so engaging and compelling. The vibe of the book is atmospheric. The author has added the elements of horror to psychological suspense with history and mystery. I loved the book and would recommend it.

There are two sisters; Anna and Jenni. They have lost their parents in an accident but they have been living in grief since then. They live in the historic bungalow on the Chicago River. The mystery of the bungalow and the river are interlinked with the past. The house has a ghostly history and it is full of strange occurrences. Chicago has a tragic history and people are going missing in the river. Anna had started doing podcast to avoid the feeling of lonesome. But her world turns upside down when she try to move forward and her sister goes missing. She believed in Little mermaid story, Ghostly tales and the gruesome things she has experienced. But when the truth comes out in light, It splatters light upon their unsettling lives and the delusions.

Thanks to the Publisher, Author and Netgalley.

I’m at a loss.

I’m still shocked this book was put out by a traditional, big 5 publisher.

This was just…bad.

Poorly executed, over written, and under edited.

Dialogue, despite the explanation that comes later, is ridiculous at best and unreadable at worst.

There’s nothing driving this story. The conflict is hidden in meandering monologues that aren’t revealed until the final act, and even still, they are unsatisfying. What’s driving our protagonist is hidden in vague references and when revealed, glossed over too quickly and leaves one unmoored and unsatisfying.

Because we never connect with these characters. Always held at arms length. Filtered through language meant to be cerebral and romantic while being circuitous and repetitive and boring instead.

I’m not one to need much plot or “story” but there is so little here. There are, however, loads of side stories explaining factoids we don’t need or never ending explanations of how our character feels. Which would be useful if those feelings ever changed, but they don’t. We get it after ten pages, but your going to get a hundred more.

The sister Jennie appearing only to intone some cryptic, oracle at Delphi type statement drove me up a wall. Language can be beautiful. But it should serve a purpose, and it doesn’t here. All I could feel was the author screaming to the reader was “pick me; choose me; love me.”

Multiple, glaring errors that should have been picked up by even a casual edit.

The detectives POV was unnecessary, and there’s one section where we slip into a side character’s POV for what purpose? Uneven and inconsistent, and again, easily fixed with a decent edit.

I absolutely in good faith cannot recommend.

The author brings us a tale that is both mysterious and sad and Im here for it. For fans of ghost stories that mine memory, fairy tales, and/or mystery resulting in immersive, heartbreakingly beautiful stories this is for you.

Lots of heart and some horror tropes that I enjoy: The relationship between a loved one and a scary house, most prominently. The sister dynamic is the perfect amount of creepy and unusual to keep me interested in the story. My only issue is that there were a few spots that were overcome by exposition that felt clunky and took me out of the story for a spell. Otherwise, great story that includes a lot of awesome research.

A new Cynthia Pelayo book is a pleasure. The author has a unique voice and can make you love even the most unlikable of characters.

Now, Forgotten Sisters absolutely surprised me. I expected fairy tales and the weird and dark history of Chicago (honestly, Pelayo makes me want to visit Chicago more and more each book), but I wasn’t expecting…Shirely Jackson!

This reads like a dark and supernatural police procedure mixed with We Have Always Lived in the Castle – and a ton of Merricat! I was so here for it.

The writing style moves between a more mystical and fantastical style and a harder, crime filled edge. It depends on which character’s head we’re in and the disparity works well.

Above all, the author brings us a tale that is both mysterious and enormously sad and I simply loved it.

• ARC via Publisher

This was a beautiful lyrical story that swept me up in its magic right from the start, the pacing in this was fantastic you can tell you're reading the work of a poet it was suspenseful whilst also introspective,
the prose is stunning and beautifully written, Cynthia weaves magic with words somehow making the many different elements of this work together seamlessly, police procedural, true crime, thriller, gothic ghost story and dark fairy tale? You got it all here, deftly drawn characters that you root for and will struggle to forget, this was a lush gothic tale about grief, murder and family.

An ambitious mix of history and horror that holds on to its secrets a little too long. Our primary narrator, Anna, is clearly unreliable as her sections contain increasingly impossible occurrences and bizarrely unnatural dialog. While I enjoy piecing together a fractured narrative, this one doesn’t even provide many breadcrumbs until the novel is nearly complete. Instead of feeling a sense of mystery, I was often frustrated. The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward feels similar, but is executed in a much more satisfactory manner.

The novel is littered with non-fiction sections on the history of Chicago, many of which I did not know, and that are frequently fascinating. Pelayo does manage to weave these historical events into the conclusion of the novel in a way that was very satisfying and quite touching. While I find all the elements of the novel interesting (unreliable narrator, the mixing of history and myth), the narrative did not always tie them together successfully.

A little of "We Have Always Lived in a Castle" plus a police thriller and a sprinkle of fairy tales....and you have Forgotten Sisters by Cynthia Pelayo.

Sisters Anna and Jennie live in a historic home in the Ravenswood neighborhood in Chicago. The raging Chicago River is next to them, and has been part of their life for so long. Anna has a fairly successful podcast, all about the haunted and historic parts of Chicago. Jennie fixes audio devices and swans around the house in black nightgowns.

At the same time, men keep washing up on the banks of the Chicago River. Their bodies are bloated and destroyed and they keep adding up, one after the other. Two police detectives, Kowalski (counting down the days to retirement) and Rodriguez (a younger detective) are on the case.

Will the detectives find the reason and person behind the men in the river?

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OK. Anna, as a character, was fantastic. She had a yearning for more human interaction and love. It was kind of sweet, really. She is also putting a large time and monetary investment into the historic home, to restore it to its former glory.

The two detectives - loved them both. Their chapters were short, funny and helped move the story along quite well.

Then we have Jennie. Jennie, Jennie, Jennie. Overbearing, prone to dramatic monologues that sound like a one-act play, and just all around...kind of the worst.

BUT all of these people combined made for a fun read.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review.

Part haunted house story, part mystery, all set against the backdrop of Chicago's past told in a lyrical style that pulls you along for a ride you won't forget!

There is something to say about a haunted house and secrets, and in Forgotten Sisters you find a pair of sisters who cannot move on from either. To say more about the plot aside from the bodies that keep surfacing in the Chicago river and the strange noises in the house would be to spoil it, so what I will say is that Pelayo's writing winningly blends the horror and the tension, both of the supernatural and the complicated bonds between Anna and Jennie.
There is a historical event that sets the background for the story and it was one I knew from one of my many YouTube rabbit holes - it was well integrated with the rest of the plot and I also enjoyed the straightforward but beautiful prose. I will definitely be reading more of Cynthia Pelayo's books.

Having read and really “enjoyed” Cynthia Pelayo’s poetry collection “Into The Forest And All The Way Through” fairly recently, I was fully on board for (thank you NetGalley!) an arc of a novel by the author. As with most things I read, I went into this not knowing at all what I was going to begin. And I was really surprised by this. Kind of a patchwork of detective story, love story, haunted house, woven in with a tragedy from the early 1900’s in Chicago. Quite an undertaking by the author to take on all of that in one book. And, for me, it worked. Because of so many leaps, there were a couple of times I had to pause to get my footing and deliberately think of where/when/who I was with as the narrator of that chapter. But, it’s not to say that was difficult to do.

You could tell you’re reading the words of a poet multiple times here, which I am a new very big fan of. This is not something I would say I’ve honestly read a great deal in this niche, but I did enjoy it. I mean, heck, I read it within 3 days. Sooooo….

Setting the Scene: 🇺🇸 Set in Chicago, Illinois
POV: We mainly follow a person living with their twin in the inherited house where they grew up. We also get the perspectives of a detective investigating the rising number of missing men who appear to have drowned near the twins’ home.

Mood Reading Match-Up:
- Fae magical realism, paranormal intrusion, or madness?
- Sprinkling of missing and murdered men mysteries with true crime vibes
- Light commentary and themes of siblings, longing, self-discovery, loyalty, history, independence, freedom, madness, inheritance, heritage, and love.

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🐺 Growls, Howls, and Tail Wags 🐕

🗣️ Tale-Telling: We mainly see the story through Anna’s perspective, which is told in first-person present tense. The haunted aspects were melodramatic and spooky, but had so much overkill info-dumping. The Detective’s parts were welcome but a tad too preachy at times (also info dumping how investigations work) instead of expanding on the obvious inspiration from true stories of missing men that turn up as 'accidental' drownings.

👥 Characters: The sisters, Anna and Jennie, were an enigma wrapped in old-timey manners, which was a great way to set the creepy charm at first. But they never progressed past that point in terms of character development, so situations happened to them, but they just seemed to continue repeating the same weirdness. The police felt straight out of a classic detective film noir in the way they talked, but later in the story they added a much needed reality check and we got too little of their perspectives.

🗺️ Ambiance: Chicago wasn’t just a backdrop; it was a character. The author did a great job of making the city’s neighborhoods come alive without turning into a geography lesson. There was enough information to follow along on Google Earth, but it wasn’t necessary to pick up on the energy.

🔥 Fuel: The mystery was slow burn, with hints of magical realism and cryptic puzzles. Initially, I was all in, but then the story stalled out where the mysteries, contradictions, puzzles, and weirdness felt like it was on repeat and nothing much was happening. The beginning of the story set up multiple threads for us to explore later, so it was disappointing when the author abandoned them in favour of repeating the sisters' dynamics and strangeness in slightly different words over and over and over.

🎬 Scenes: The middle chunk of this story was like a car stuck in the mud spinning wheels. The plot progresses, but oh so slowly, with the same themes circling back again and again. The resolution of everything left me feeling like it wasn't really worth trudging through all the muck to get there.
The investigation side should have been more fleshed out, giving a realism to the exploration of why there has been an increase in missing and potentially murdered men. It would have been a nice counter to the sisters’ mystical musings and easily could have replaced the highly repetitive scenes we were stuck in with Anna and Jennie in the middle of the novel. It also would have added some much needed mystery fuel for the reader - do we believe the sisters' hauntings or the Detective's hunch that an unconventional serial killer is on the loose....and do those two things interconnect?

🤓 Random Thoughts: The story itself seemed creative and interesting, but its execution was clunky. Like it was trying too hard to be profound, especially with the obsession around the same tropes and themes. This could have done well as a novella, or with balance brought through less repetitive worship of the house and family in favour of exploring the drowned victims’ stories and investigation.

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Content Heads-Up: Body decomposition. Murder. Death. Mental health (delusions, paranoia, anxiety). Co-dependency.
Rep: Ambiguous ancestry/race. Cis-gender. Heterosexual relationships.

👀 Format: Digital Review Copy from Thomas & Mercer and NetGalley

“Reviews are my musings 💖 powered by puppy snuggles 🐶 refined by my AI bookworm bestie ✨”

"Forgotten Sisters" by Cynthia Pelayo was, regrettably, a disappointing read for me. I found myself quite confused while reading the book. The narrative was challenging to follow, and at one point, I even mistook one of the sisters for one of the detectives involved in the investigation. The sisters' dialogue felt forced and oddly structured, making it challenging to connect with their characters.

While the book did have some redeeming qualities, such as the chapters that followed the detectives during their investigations, these were infrequent. I found Anna's podcast's historical insights into Chicago intriguing, but I felt that these chapters were oddly placed within the narrative. Moreover, the rapid development of the relationship with Peter felt rushed and lacked the depth I had expected, given the sisters' upbringing and lifestyle. The book successfully created an ominous atmosphere, but it failed to deliver a compelling mystery due to the overwhelming confusion I experienced.

The conclusion, while unexpected, did not entirely compensate for the lack of clarity throughout the story. However, for me, it simply wasn't to my liking. While the concept was intriguing, the implementation fell short. The unsettling history, unexplained drownings, and the growing number of bodies floating by Anna's window were promising elements, but the story failed to fully capitalize on these intriguing aspects.

Overall, "Forgotten Sisters" by Cynthia Pelayo was a perplexing and disjointed read for me. While it may appeal to readers who enjoy unraveling mysteries, it lacked the coherence and development I seek in a psychological suspense novel.

(Note: This review is based on an ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) of the book.)

Forgotten Sisters by Cynthia Pelayo is a masterpiece of a dark fairy tale and readers are going to love it!

This book follows two sisters Jennie and Anna in Chicago in their family's home. Anna runs a popular podcast where she discusses the grisly and heartbreaking stories of those who have died tragically in Chicago. Anna through this project meets a new love interest, who begins to threaten Anna and Jennie's long-standing family bond. Or at least so Jennie thinks. The resulting story is a beautiful and shocking thrill ride that I enjoyed.

This was my first Cynthia Pelayo novel, but it absolutely will not be my last. Cynthia Pelayo is an INCREDIBLE writer. Seriously, some of the passages in this novel are just exceptional and I cannot wait until this book is out so that I can purchase this novel and share some of those final passages. They are just beautifully written and they pair with this dark fairy tale so well.

In addition to the writing style just being fun and thrilling, so are the action and mystery elements that Pelayo added in. I think they pull the reader into this story and ensure that you aren't going to be released until the very last second. I did not know how this book was going to end and the twists at the end had me gasping out loud late into the evening. Readers are going to delight in this novel, so be sure to get your copy, and don't miss out on this one!

This book is perfect for fans of dark fairy tales, and dark beautiful fiction. Also great for fans of Where They Wait by Scott Carson.

Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy this. The book is muddled and poorly written. It has serious problems with decent characterization, narration and all of the fundamental elements that compose a novel. I have never come across any book put out by a major publisher that's in this sort of condition. I'm not sure what Thomas & Mercer is up to, but I'm more suspicious of the quality of their titles after reading this book. It's on par with something that a lower-ranking, self-published author without much experience would put out on her own.

The chill wind of Chicago seeps into every page of Forgotten Sisters; a fairytale-laced gothic ghost story, it's rife with modern elements while still maintaining an air of classicism. Pelayo masterfuly weaves magic through the story, meshing it with elements of a police procedural, and perhaps, most notably, never allows the reader to feel settled. The prose is stunning and the story is deeper than the Chicago River. Pelayo is to Chicago as Lehane is to Boston.

This book sounded very intriguing, and I was excited to dig in. However, I found it to be a bit odd, and rather confusing. There was a lot of point of view switching and it was difficult for me to keep track. I also found it hard to connect to the characters, probably because I spent most of the book in a state of confusion. These are books that make me wonder why I don’t give up, then I remember I am stubborn and want to see how things end. I found certain elements of this book to just be bizarre and I am still shaking my head trying to figure them out, but I guess the author is tying in The Little Mermaid? I don’t know, it didn’t work.

While I did find this story compelling, I think that this book had structural issues that I couldn’t reconcile and it took away from my enjoyment.

Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for this e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

This was a rare DNF for me. I do not like to give up on books, but I read about 25% and could not get into it. Anna and her sister Jennie live along the Chicago River in a home passed on from their grandparents. They rarely leave, except for walks. Anna hosts a crime podcast from their home and Jennie likely has mental health issues as she mostly stays in her room donned in elegant pajamas. In the meantime, two homicide detectives (one about to retire and one new to homicide) are investigating a series of drownings in the river involving young men. The premise was promising, however, the pacing is very slow and the writing regarding the sisters' storyline is almost floaty and dreamlike most of the time.

Tethered together by an unforgettable past, Anna and Jennie live in a historic bungalow on the river. Not even the bumps in the night can convince them to leave their family home. To keep her loneliness at bay, Anna has a podcast where she tells tales of Chicago's unforgettable past. It's not until Anna captures the attention of a male listener that she considers a world outside...

Forgotten Sisters is definitely not a typical read for me. This book had a lot of elements I wasn't expecting yet I found myself completely intrigued by this story and couldn't help but want to know more. I'm glad I decided to check this book out.