The Moonstone Sister by Eleanor Buchanan

#TheMoonstoneSister #NetGalley

464 pages

Historical fiction-Women’s fiction

Five stars *****

Pub date: 14 January 2027

My thoughts:

The Sea Stone Sisters was a five star book for me and I do not have an overabundance of those. So, when I was invited to read this second in the series (I think that there will be four in all), I was so excited that I wanted to pinch myself. I couldn’t decide whether to read this right away or save it for when I needed a good read during a stressful time. However, there was no way that I could wait until January so I have now read this and will have to wait for the third.

The background in brief is that very long ago, four sisters met a terrible fate. Stones in their memory that were meant to stand were instead knocked down by a selfish owner of a beautiful home (they obstructed his view). In the more recent past, the four sisters who were living there have been dispersed to different places and fates.

The first book in this dual time line series told the story of the oldest sister. With background in places including Scotland, Ceylon and Australia, it made for absorbing reading. Readers also met Roz and learned about how the two women’s history intersected. Those who read the first book will find references to Iris and Roz in this title. They will have that nice feeling of being insiders to a story. A lawyer from that first book also features here.

This time, the story focuses on Lily (in the more distant plot). Like all of the sisters, she has a ring that she inherited from her mother. The ring has some interesting properties. Watch for it.

Lily and Daisy thought that they would always be together, even as Iris and another sister have gone their separate ways. However, this is not to be. Lily finds that she is being sent to the South of France to live with a relative that she did not even know existed. She has both her struggles and joys over the course of the book from this point.

Background for Lily’s story includes her love of photography. This leads her to contact with a well-known photographer and some of the famous writers and artists who were in the area. There are also two men who will be important to Lily.

In the present, readers meet Clara. She has her own romance issues as readers learn. A researcher, she becomes involved in trying to learn more about photographer, LB, whom Clara suspects is Lily.

As in the first book, histories intersect. Readers will hope for some happy endings and will then eagerly await the next book.

I definitely rate this one five stars although I liked the first book just the teenisest bit more.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Headline for this title. All thoughts are my own.

Post first published on 12 August 2026.

Description

from the publisher

Wear the ring, take it with you wherever you go. It is your link to Skara and to your sisters and it will keep you strong.’

1931. When Lily Blackmore and her sisters are forced to leave their beautiful Scottish home of Skara, she hopes to at least remain with her younger sister Daisy, but instead finds herself on the Blue Train headed for life on the French Riviera, and an aunt she’s never met.
As she attempts to find her feet in this completely new world, Lily is faced with both the beauty and ugliness of life in Cannes. And, as a shadow starts to fall over Europe, she must learn to forge her own way forward.

Present day. Newly engaged and working on a job she loves, Clara Gibson had thought that everything was falling into place. But when her grandmother dies, and she is faced with an unthinkable betrayal, Clara finds herself desperately trying to escape her life.
When the newly discovered secrets of her grandmother’s life emerge, and demonstrate odd parallels to the mysterious 1932 photographer that haunts Clara’s research, she starts to uncover a long-forgotten story . . .

Four lost sisters. An epic journey home. Will you follow?

From the (American) Publisher