Another real person appearing in the story is local Clogagh fighter Charlie Hurley. ‘The Big Fellow’ rose to be director of intelligence for the Irish Republican Army. An inspiration to the Irish is Michael Collins, from Clonakilty in West Cork, close to where Riley sets her story. New to me was the ‘Cumann na mBan’, the Irish women’s volunteer movement, and its role not simply in feeding and clothing the fighting men but as couriers delivering not only messages but weapons. Riley, herself Northern Irish, tells of a chapter in Irish history with a fascinating insight into the impact on a small rural community, the bravery, secrecy, divisions, the betrayals and deprivations. Plus two historical timelines – of Nuala Murphy, a farmer’s daughter in the West of Ireland in July 1920, a critical time in Irish independence and of Mary O’Reilly starting in October 1955 in the Irish valley of Argideen. In the present day we hear the voices of recently-widowed Merry McDougal who leaves New Zealand on a Grand Tour around the world, of her daughter Mary-Kate left at home to run the prize-winning winery, and of the six D’Aplièse sisters who follow the clues. Mary can be identified by the distinctive diamond and emerald ring she wears.

The pursuit begins with the announcement by the family lawyer that the missing sister is in New Zealand. The confusion over the first name adds to the twists in a book packed with twists and turns when the missing D’Aplièse sister is identified as either a mother and daughter, both called Mary. The Missing Sister is the story of Merope – Mary, or Merry, as she is called in the book – though it’s unclear whether she is lost, or simply ‘missing’ from the family because Pa Salt didn’t adopt her. Their parents were Atlas, a Titan commanded by the god Zeus to hold up the earth, and Pleione, the mythical protectress of sailors. The seven sisters of the myth were Maia, Alcyone, Asterope, Celaeno, Taygete, Electra, and Merope. The publication of the eighth book sadly follows Lucinda Riley’s death in 2021, so the forthcoming eighth book will be based on Lucinda’s draft and completed by her son Harry Whittaker. This is an example of a family saga that you want to run and run. So, I finished this latest book with many questions remaining.

The Missing Sister will be followed later this year by Atlas: The Story of Pa Salt. Well, what I thought would be the final book, the seventh in the wonderful Seven Sisters series by Lucinda Riley, turns out not to be the last after all.

The missing sister lucinda riley