The book was archived before our group could download it. We are sure that we would have enjoyed the book judging from the reviews it has received.

I thought The Forgotten Sister was a well-written and compelling mystery, that seamlessly moved between the Tudor era and the present day. My only niggle would be that I never found any of the characters particularly likeable, so the stakes didn’t feel as high as they could have for me. I am still really looking forward to reading more by Nicola Cornick.

An emotional and heart-warming read that I loved. Lovely plot and characters. Highly recommended and looking forward to reading more from the author.

The Forgotten Sister is an intriguing, interesting mystery spanning across two time-periods. Just not one to be taken too seriously or examined in a close historical context.

Lizzie – our main character – is a celebrity living in a sheltered bubble where her ability to take care of herself is non-existent. After she starts to see her supposed best friend for who he really is and understands those she’s trusted to guide her look to their own finances first, she receives a wakeup call.

Venturing out on her own was never going to be easy. But with a suspicious death hanging over her and the deceased’s family complicating her life, Lizzie must figure out what’s going on.

The second narration is Amy Dudley, the wife of Robert Dudley in the time of Queen Elizabeth I’s reign. I was already familiar with how Amy died and the implications this had on Dudley and Elizabeth’s relationship. Perhaps this was why I didn’t become engrossed in Amy’s plotting because I knew how it would end.

There’s an element of magic throughout the book which gave it an added dimension. While not central to the mystery, it may have become flat without it.

It isn’t the type of book you can’t put down. But it has a gentle paced mystery, and the guilty party was not anyone I suspected, so it certainly kept me engaged. There is a great deal of character development for Lizzie, and you root for her. A relatively short but engaging read.

This book is told from a dual timeline. The pace of the story is slow which makes the storyline confusing.
This story has many characters which can also be confusing. However the story is good and thought provoking

There were elements off this book that I really liked but it was not as engrossing as I'd hoped it would be. I'm happy to suspend disbelief at times but this book asked a little too much in this respect.

A superb blend of history, mystery, intrigue and romance, Nicola Cornick’s The Forgotten Sister is a beguiling timeslip tale that will bewitch readers everywhere and keep them reading all through the night.

In 1560, Amy Robsart’s life is in jeopardy. Her husband, Robert Dudley, might be a courtier of Queen Elizabeth I, the most powerful woman in England, and they have untold riches and privileges, but Amy is trapped. She knows that her husband does not love her and that her enemies are plotting and scheming against her because the queen is in love with the only man she simply cannot have: Robert! With enemies round every corner and nobody she can trust, Amy is all on her own. Danger dogs her every step and desperate and alone, she hatches a scheme to escape which is going to have devastating repercussions which will echo through the centuries…

In the present day, Lizzie Kingdom has a gift. However, her gift is not one she is proud of, rather it is a gift which over the years she has tried her hardest to suppress: psychometry. Ever since she was a little girl, all Lizzie had to do was touch certain objects and she would immediately be able to see facts and truths about its owners. With a tumultuous family and relationships history, this is the last thing Lizzie needs in a life fraught with chaos and challenges. However, when at her best friend’s celebrity wedding, Lizzie finds herself drawn to a particular object, she is shocked when she loses consciousness and comes to feeling scared and unsettled as the past and present merge in the most startling and disturbing of ways.

As Lizzie becomes determined to separate fact from fiction and uncover a dangerous secret that has been buried for centuries, she finds herself joining forces with a young man called Johnny Robsart who is convinced that she is the key to uncovering the truth. Will Lizzie be able to lay old ghosts to rest? Or are some secrets best left dead and buried?

Nicola Cornick’s The Forgotten Sister is an exquisitely written dual narrative tale that effortlessly blends the past and the present in a suspenseful, spine-chilling, evocative and mesmerizing novel I was still engrossed in in the early hours of the morning. A multi-layered, meticulously researched and beautifully redolent tale of danger, deception and desire, The Forgotten Sister is the story of two women separated by centuries who are united by a powerful secret that is so brilliantly written readers will be on the edge of their seats throughout.

An outstanding timeslip novel from a master storyteller, Nicola Cornick has another winner on her hands with her latest novel, The Forgotten Sister.

A Tudor mystery entwined with modern people sharing the same names plus a curse through the ages which has to be stopped to prevent any more tragedies. I’m a bit ambivalent about this book and am not too sure if I liked it or not! Loved the idea and the enduring conundrum as to what really happened to Amy Robsart combined with odd happenings now. Amy’s section sometimes featured modern day terminology which jarred but I loved the retelling of what could have happened to her. Liked the historical titbits which gave a taster of life in Tudor times. A clever book with an interesting view of days gone by.

The Forgotten Sister is the fourth book I’ve read by Nicola Cornick and, like the others (The Phantom Tree, House of Shadows and The Woman in the Lake), it is a dual time period novel with hints of the supernatural.

In the modern day, we meet Lizzie Kingdom, a television presenter and former child star. Having grown up in the public eye, Lizzie has always known how to manage her image and avoid bad publicity, but all of that is about to change with the death of Amelia Robsart. Amelia is the wife of Lizzie’s best friend, Dudley Lester, an ex-boyband member, and when she is found dead at the bottom of the stairs, Lizzie is drawn into the scandal that follows.

If you know your Elizabethan history, you may have already seen parallels here, so it’s no surprise that the historical thread of the novel is set in the 16th century and tells the story of Amy Robsart, trapped in an unhappy and loveless marriage to the courtier Robert Dudley. Everyone knows that the woman Robert really loves is Elizabeth I and he spends more and more of his time at court while Amy stays hidden away in the countryside. History tells us that in September 1560, Amy will be found dead, believed to have broken her neck falling down the stairs. Rumours immediately begin to circulate because, of course, Amy’s death leaves Robert free to marry the queen.

The fate of Amy Robsart remains an unsolved mystery to this day. Was her husband responsible for her death? Was it an accident? Was it suicide? Whatever the answer, we know that Robert Dudley never did marry Elizabeth I. As soon as those rumours began to spread, it became important for her to distance herself from them – which is exactly what Lizzie Kingdom does in the present day timeline of the novel when people begin to wonder whether she and Dudley Lester had something to do with Amelia’s death.

Whenever I read a book set in two time periods, I usually find that one of them appeals to me more than the other. With this book, it was the storyline set in the past. I enjoyed reading about Amy Robsart; I had a lot of sympathy for her as she gradually loses her youthful enthusiasm for life and her hopes for a loving, affectionate marriage and becomes aware that her husband wants very little to do with her. The mystery of Amy’s death is handled in an interesting way and if Nicola Cornick had just concentrated on telling this story and not the one set in the modern day, I would probably have been able to give this book a much more positive review.

Unfortunately, I didn’t like the present day story at all. The characters didn’t quite feel real to me and I think a large part of that was due to their names and relationships seeming so contrived and unnatural. Not only do we have Lizzie Kingdom (corresponding to Elizabeth I), Amelia Robsart (Amy Robsart) and Dudley Lester (Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester), almost all of the other characters have similar names to their historical counterparts too. When even the Elizabethan noblewoman Lettice Knollys appeared in modern form as Letty Knollys, the wife of one of Dudley Lester’s bandmates, I started to find it all very distracting and I think the whole thing would have worked better for me if the parallels between past and present had been more subtle.

After finishing the book I looked to see what other people thought of it and it seems that most people have loved it, so I think this was probably just a case of book and reader not being right for each other! I enjoyed all of the other Nicola Cornick novels I’ve read, particularly The Phantom Tree, so I will continue to look out for more of her books in the future.

Ground the store love a bit confusing and wasn't sure who was the forgotten sister. Not a memorable book.

'The Forgotten Sister' by Nicola Cornick is a retelling of the Tudor love triangle of Queen Elizabeth I, Robert Dudley and Dudley’s wife Amy Robsart. The death of Amy has intrigued historians for centuries: did she fall downstairs, or was she pushed? Did her husband arrange her murder so he could marry the queen? Tudor history is mashed together with time travel and all kinds of mystical goings-on.
Cornick has fun with her explanation of events, telling the story in dual timelines and mirroring Tudor characters with a contemporary circle of celebrities. At first, I found this irritating and was diverted from the story by trying to match up modern personalities with their Tudor equivalent. But when I stopped doing that, I sank into this easy-to-read story which I read over a weekend.
Lizzie Kingdom is a television personality with a clean-cut image. Her best friend is Dudley Lester, wild boy and former boy band member of Call Back Summer. When Dudley’s wife Amelia falls down the stairs to her death at their country house, Oakhanger Hall, Lizzie is suspected of having an affair with Dudley. Her ‘good girl’ image is in tatters and the press is hunting her. Lizzie’s story races along, she quickly discards her sycophantic group of followers and retreats to a country house she inherited but has rarely visited. And there we start to understand the mystical ability which Lizzie possesses connecting her with events in the past simply by touching an object – known as psychometry, or token object reading.
The romantic sub-plot sparks into life when Lizzie accidentally touches Arthur Robsart, the quiet rather stolid older brother of Amelia. Never before has her psychometric ability worked on a person. Arthur and his sister Anna suspect Lizzie of responsibility for the disappearance in odd circumstances of their younger brother Johnny. With the police seeking her again, this time for possible murder, Lizzie must choose whether to use the ability she has previously used only to remember her dead mother. To say more will give away the plot.
This was a fun read though populated with some unpleasant characters who were difficult to like. I was left wondering what the story would have been like if the viewpoints had been expanded to four. Cornick tells the story only via Amy Robsart and Lizzie Kingdom and shows us nothing of the events as experienced by Queen Elizabeth I [Lizzie’s equivalent] or Amelia Lester [Amy’s modern-day equivalent]. After Amelia’s death, Lizzie is crucified on social media, I was left wondering if Queen Elizabeth knew, or cared about, the gossip surrounding Dudley’s, and her own, guilt in Amy’s death.
A note on the cover, yet again another cover design which, though attractive, bears little connection with the story.
Read more of my book reviews at http://www.sandradanby.com/book-reviews-a-z/

The Forgotten Sister - Nicola Cornick
You know when you pick a book just for a palette cleanser but it ends up being one of the most addictive things you’ve read all year? That is the only way I can describe this book.
I honestly didn't read too much into this when I picked it on Netgalley,  it looked like a thriller and as I hadn't read one of those in ages and I really fancied one, I was like, oh, that'll do. What I got was a wild mix of mystery, historical fiction and contemporary all in one and I bloody loved it. I mean why wouldn't I? It featured loads of my favourite genres in one!

One woman’s secret will shape another’s destiny…

1560: Amy Robsart is trapped in a loveless marriage to Robert Dudley, a member of the court of Queen Elizabeth I. Surrounded by enemies and with nowhere left to turn, Amy hatches a desperate scheme to escape – one with devastating consequences that will echo through the centuries…

Present Day: When Lizzie Kingdom is forced to withdraw from the public eye in a blaze of scandal, it seems her life is over. But she’s about to encounter a young man, Johnny Robsart, whose fate will interlace with hers in the most unexpected of ways. For Johnny is certain that Lizzie is linked to a terrible secret dating back to Tudor times. If Lizzie is brave enough to go in search of the truth, then what she discovers will change the course of their lives forever.

Moving between the Tudor era and the present day,The Forgotten Sister draws on one of history’s most compelling mysteries.

When you consider how many genres are stuffed into one book, it sounds like it shouldn't work, but it actually really does.
This is told from two perspectives, TV personality and former child star Lizzie Kingdom is our present day narrator, her best friend from childhood is Dudley Lester, former pop star and now scrounger. His wife has just died and people are suspicious and his young brother in law is pretty sure that a certain gift of Amy's can help put an end to a centuries long run of bad luck in his family. In the past, we have Amy Dudley, who for those that didn't know, was the wife of Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester. He was a childhood friend and rumoured lover of Elizabeth I. (Are you starting to notice a pattern?) There was a lot of pressure for Elizabeth I to settle down and marry, though obviously, she couldn't marry her lover, he was already married. Only then poor Amy is found at the bottom of the stairs dead in mysterious circumstances. Of course, we'll never know if she was pushed, fell or jumped. But the rumours that Dudley and or Elizabeth were involved has haunted historians for generations and this mystery is at the crux of the Forgotten Sister.
This book is so much fun, how it manages to combine the historical fiction by showing us Amy Dudley's life with Robert Dudley, her being pushed aside for the Queen and the various intrigues of the Tudor Court, with Lizzie Kingdom's present day life in the wake of the death of Amelia Lester, her Dudley's late wife is so much fun and offers a unique and engaging way of presenting historical fiction, its a book that suits everyone and manages to fill multiple genres without doing a disservice to any of them.


I’ve mentioned before that I’m a little obsessed with books about the Tudor dynasty, (I blame Philippa Gregory) honestly I firmly believe the concept of soap operas were invented by those that knew the Tudors. Even if you take the family out of the equation, the courtiers, the lords, what was going on in Scotland at the time - it is all drama all the time.
Even if you ignore Henry VIII, probably the most famous of the Tudors, and his six wives, there’s his parents and the fact that his dad was a usurper and the entire dynasty was constructed and schemed into place by his paternal grandmother.(If anyone knows of any books that focus on Margaret Beaufort, send them my way, she was FASCINATING). Then the fact that his parents were from warring families and his mum had to watch while his dad rounded up and killed her cousins to ensure he stayed on the throne. Then the Scottish stuff with Henry’s sister and the french stuff with his other sister, the death of his brother, all the craziness of his reign and then the shenanigans of Edward, Mary and Elizabeth. Seriously, soap opera.
Anyway, I digress, because of my interest in historical fiction based around the Tudors, I'd naturally heard all about Amy Dudley and the Dudley family (if the Tudors are the Mitchells, the Dudleys are the Beales - that's one for the soap fans out there) and this was such an interesting way to tell Amy's story adding in some modern day parallels and even a bit of magic in the mix.


Aside from Amy's narrative, we also have a look at modern day fame with Lizzie and her inner circle and it was interesting to see essentially the same story play out from two different points in history and from the opposite ends of each story. The characters we meet in the modern world are just as ambitious and full of intrigue as those from the Tudor times, including Lizzie's manager Bill (a little nod to Queen Elizabeth's advisor, William Cecil) and her godmother/assistant, Kat Ashley (Queen Elizabeth's godmother/head lady in waiting had the same name) and of course, the various members of the Robsart family that we meet, all of whom have their parallels in the past. The whole thing was just so addictive, I raced through it.


In the object of fairness, I will say that I hate the title - its quite good at hiding the true depth of the story. If like me, you don't pay much attention to blurbs, you would look at the title and the cover and think, ooo ok family mystery, maybe a bit of a thriller which obviously, isn't the main focus of this particularly story and I don't think it does the book much justice. The Forgotten Sister sounds intriguing, but it doesn't sound like a story that spans hundreds of years and involves royalty and celebrities does it?
I wasn't all that jazzed about the supernatural elements either. I know that is how Lizzie and Johnny are able to solve the riddle that connects Amelia and Amy, but I think the dual narrative, the story of history repeating itself and the way the story was put together were engaging enough without adding it in. Also, I think it must be quite hard to add a little bit of psychic stuff in having built your world and set it in reality, but it was interesting to see those topics explored - it's something I've not really come across before.


That aside though this was a very pleasant surprise! So, if you like contemporary and you like historical fiction and you're searching for something to bridge the gap, make sure to check this out!

This is an enjoyable read, combining the real life mystery surrounding the death/suicide/murder of Amy Robsart, the wife of Robert Dudley who was known as one of Queen Elizabeth I’s favourite courtiers and a present day parallel with modern counterparts. The present day characters are very cleverly named and characterised to echo their real life historical counterparts. We have Lizzie Kingdom (flame haired daughter of Annie Bowling and Harry Kingdom) who is a clean cut tv personality and Dudley Lester, childhood friend, wild ex boy band member, amongst others.
The historical chapters telling the story of Amy Robsart is a pleasure to read and offer an insight into the life (perhaps) of a young, beautiful but humiliated woman and her tragic demise. In fact, I’d have enjoyed an entire novel of the historical parts very much. The present day story is interwoven with suggestions of the paranormal bringing the two stories together, the present echoing the past and history repeating itself.
I felt that the book picked up much more pace just before the halfway mark but that was perhaps because I am already familiar with the history and didn’t need to have the scene set and context so much.

Thank you to HQ for sending me this copy to read and review. I look forward to reading more titles!

This was such a compelling story and well-written book! There's time travel in it, so if you like that trope, it's definitely a good one. Loved the atmosphere, the characters, and the plot.
Absolutely a gem.

Thanks a lot to NG and the publisher for this copy.

This has to be one of the best time travel stories I’ve read. I loved it. Filled with mystery, atmosphere and tension, I was drawn into the story and transported to troubles in Court in the 16th Century and then back to Oxfordshire in 21st.
It was exciting but with a sadness; a curse repeating over the centuries. Could it be that Lizzie Kingdom is the one to put this right and might she get to sort her own complicated life out at the same time?

This was a fascinating story of characters in two time scales with history linking them. The Tudor period is one of my favourites and being able to link that to the present day was an added bonus. Well written book that kept me absorbed the whole way through.

I enjoyed this story very much. It is two stories entwined, the characters in both having similar names, and for a long time - similar fates. In the Tudor era part of the story we are following the life of Amy Robsart, wife of Robert Dudley, first Earl of Leicester. It is a loveless marriage, he is a man of great ambition and has plans to marry Elizabeth 1st, the Queen. In the modern day part we follow the story of media celebrity Lizzie Kingdom, whose life and career are collapsing round her ears after an event that has made her infamous. She longs to step back from the publicity and get back to basics.

It took me a while to really see how the two stories fit together, the author has done an excellent job, you can concentrate on the storyline you are reading, yet still slip seamlessly into the other story. In some ways it almost shouldn’t work, because each story is concentrating on a different character, but that doesn’t matter. There is an object that binds the two stories, It is important in the modern story but when it is removed to Tudor timesIt seems to lose its relevance, except as a way for two characters to meet.

A thought-provoking tale, well worth reading

1560: Amy Robsart is trapped in a loveless marriage to Robert Dudley, a member of the court of Queen Elizabeth I. Surrounded by enemies and with nowhere left to turn, Amy hatches a desperate scheme to escape – one with devastating consequences that will echo through the centuries…
Present Day: When Lizzie Kingdom is forced to withdraw from the public eye in a blaze of scandal, it seems her life is over. But she’s about to encounter a young man, Johnny Robsart, whose fate will interlace with hers in the most unexpected of ways. For Johnny is certain that Lizzie is linked to a terrible secret dating back to Tudor times. If Lizzie is brave enough to go in search of the truth, then what she discovers will change the course of their lives forever.
This book is not one of my usual type of books that I read. But after guessing quite a few endings to "psychological thrillers" I wanted to try something new.
I am so glad that I chose this novel to do just that.
It had a great storyline and was very gripping. I will definitely bear this author in mind when I need a break from psychological thrillers in future.

Nice escapist fiction for this lockdown period. Read in one sitting and very enjoyable. I always enjoy her books when I need to clear my mind. Some people meditate, I read books like this.

Enjoyable 'chick-lit' mystery, romance, with paranormal episodes. The book alternates between the 16th century marriage of Amy Robstart and Robert Dudley, and the present day with celebrities Dudley Lester and Lizzie Kingdom. The characters are well-drawn, and believable - vacuous, self-centred to begin with, but, fortunately for Lizzie she changes. The plot is good, but I found the writing not as good as that of other novelists in a similar genre, and a couple of times there could have been some editing. Otherwise an enjoyable read.

Thanks to NetGalley and HQ for an advance copy.