Recent Reads: The Fall and Rise of the Amir Sisters by Nadiya Hussain

My review: 🌟🌟🌟🌟

I had loved watching Nadiya Hussain on Great British Bake Off, cheered and cried when she won.  So you can imagine my excitement when I spotted she had written a fiction book (The Secret Lives of the Amir Sisters)!  I added it (at least mentally) to my to read list, but then I saw the second book was coming, so I ran off and got the first so I could review the second!

In the first book The Secret Lives of the Amir Sisters (available on Amazon, and every where you can buy books) looks at all the secrets the sisters, and family, have from one another, and the chaos that it can cause on their lives.  Fatima (Fatti) feels out of place, still living at home with her parents in her 30s, wanting more, and coping with her feelings by eating.  Farah lives a perfect life, with her successful husband, in a beautiful home, is the dependable one, but then her husband is in an accident, and things start to unravel.  Bubblee has never approved of her twin, Farah, marrying Mustafa, and not just because he was their first cousin, but at least she’s left the village, can live her life, and create her art in London, which means success must just be around the corner, right?  Mae is the youngest, and obsessed with social media, and blogging about her family.  But she blogs about her family anonymously, so no one will ever connect the dots...

In The Fall and rise of the Amir Sisters, Mae is off to university, Bubblee is visiting home, Farah is desperate for a baby, and Fatti is happy, and we know that everything is going to change.

I enjoyed seeing where the characters went, and how things changed, even if my heart did ache for Farah and Mustafa.  I thought the way the family interacts with each other is authentic (the scene in the hairdressers, for instance.  Who wouldn’t want to hide from that conversation!), and you can see the love they have for each other.  The characters are consistent from the first book in to the second, and Nadiya Hussain has put them through an emotional rollercoaster.

I'm looking forward to the third book, which I feel must be planned!

The Fall and Rise of the Amir Sisters is out on 24th January 2019, and available on Amazon to pre-order, and everywhere else you can find books!

I was given this book for free in return for an unbiased review, so my thanks to NetGalley and HQ (the publishers) for this book.

Check out my GoodReads profile for more reviews.