Sisters Red

Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce tells a familiar story through two sisters- Scarlett and Rosie March whose lives were forever changed when a man came calling at their grandmother's house one day. Now forced to face that there are darker things in reality, the sisters become hunters, specifically of Fenris, werewolves, who haunt their sleepy home in Ellison. Things are changing though, the attacks are becoming more frequent and the Fenris are growing in number and Scarlett is determined to find out why and stop them. Rosie however is becoming a little distracted with their childhood friend Silas, son of the woodsman who saved them, and also a Fenris hunter. Scarlett is driven by her own figurative and literative scarring, she knows she can never fit into the real world but Rosie is still unmarred and Silas' reminder that there is another world out there is all too tempting.

I loved this book, for most of the way I could not put it down although when it drew to its climax I must admit I grew a little bored. The idea of Red Riding Hood becoming a wolf/werewolf hunter is not new, Syfy have done a show about it, American McGee appeared to make a game in a similar vein and there are others. However, it still made for an exiciting read as you heard the story switching from between the POV of Rosie and Scarlett, two very different sisters. Scarlett has been hardened by her traumatic past and makes for a strong lead whilst Rosie seems to hunt mostly out of guilt and loyalty as she feels she owes Scarlett her life and that Scarlett paid for it very dearly by becoming scarred and losing sight in one eye. Rosie is a little young and naive and when she falls for Silas it is understandable but at the same time she is irritating at times and it's not hard to see why Scarlett grows angry with her.

Silas is alright as the male lead, he is a woodsman whose family was broken up when his father left him the house and his siblings nothing, he misses his family but makes little attempt to make amends. You never meet them, save for his father, and all you learn about Silas is what Rosie and Scarlett know about him and think of him. He is Scarlett's partner though she feels he betrayed her by leaving Ellison for a while, and he becomes Rosie's love interest. It's an interesting romance but he never has any competition for her affections and neither does she for his because there aren't really any other characters in the book, due to the nature of their lives they are largely loners, too afraid to drag others into such a nightmarish and dangerous world.

Overall it is a good read and I would recommend it to LRRH and werewolf fans, there's enough to get you hooked and keep you interested though it lags at times and there are some points when you have to suspend your disbelief, well obviously it's a fictional werewolf novel, but it's better than a lot of other werewolf novels out there and it's not purely oriented around sex. It's more about the length to which Rosie and Scarlett's bonds are pushed and how they find out there are a lot more different than they realised, combined with their mixed feelings towards Silas as both a welcome addition to the team and a nuisance who may ultimately divide them forever.