Mark Lawrence kicked off Red Sister, the 2017 opening novel in the Book of the Ancestor trilogy, with one of the best hooks modern fantasy has produced: “It is important, when killing a nun, to ensure that you bring an army of sufficient size.” The book follows Nona Grey as she begins her training at the Convent of Sweet Mercy.
Close to a decade later, Red Sister, followed by Grey Sister and Holy Sister, still feels like its own thing. Nona is violent, gifted, and dropped into a convent where girls are trained to become assassin nuns, warriors, mystics, and, more than anything, survivors. The story mixes bloodshed with sisterhood, then folds in fate, agency, and the price that comes with power.
That opening line still works because it does three jobs at once. It gives you intrigue, a streak of dark wit, and a sense of mythic scale before the book has barely started. And Red Sister earns that promise on Abeth, an ice-locked world where people live in a thin habitable corridor. It brings in fantasy magic and prophecy, some sharp sci-fi edges, a magic-school coming-of-age arc, and world-building with real momentum behind it. The pacing holds, too, and the book went on to earn a 2018 David Gemmell Legend Award nomination.
If dark fantasy with a formidable lead is your lane, Red Sister is an easy one to pick up. Just don’t get crossed up by the newly announced film The Red Sister, which has nothing to do with Mark Lawrence’s book. There still isn’t any known film or TV adaptation of Book of the Ancestor.
Start with Red Sister, then move on to Grey Sister and Holy Sister, and after that you can keep going with Mark Lawrence’s related Book of the Ice series.
