The Sun Sister

The sixth installment in Lucinda Riley's Seven Sisters series follows Electra d'Aplièse, a world-famous supermodel secretly battling addiction, as she confronts her self-destruction and uncovers her biological family's story, from 1930s colonial Kenya to the American civil rights movement.

In March 2008, Electra is living in a New York penthouse, dependent on vodka and cocaine, unable to be honest with anyone about her substance use. She is one of six adopted sisters raised by the enigmatic Pa Salt at Atlantis, their family home on Lake Geneva, Switzerland. Pa Salt died the previous summer, and Electra is haunted by their last meeting, when she was intoxicated and walked out on him. She hires Mariam Kazemi, a composed Muslim woman of Iranian heritage, as her new personal assistant. Mariam shows Electra a letter from a woman named Stella Jackson, who claims to be Electra's biological grandmother. When her ex-boyfriend, rock star Mitch Duggan, visits only to announce his engagement to another woman, Electra's drug and alcohol use intensifies.

A parallel historical narrative, related by Electra's grandmother Stella, begins in late 1938. Cecily Huntley-Morgan, a 22-year-old from a wealthy Manhattan family, is heartbroken after her fiancé ends their engagement. At a New Year's Eve ball, her godmother, Kiki Preston, a glamorous socialite living in Kenya, invites Cecily to visit. En route, Cecily stays at an English country estate where she is seduced by Julius Woodhead, the estate owner's nephew, who implies they will be engaged. After sleeping with him, she discovers he is already engaged to someone else.

Cecily arrives in Kenya and is overwhelmed by the beauty of Lake Naivasha and the extravagant lifestyle of the Happy Valley set, a community of wealthy British expatriates known for hedonism. She befriends Katherine Stewart, a warm young veterinarian, and meets Bill Forsythe, a blunt, reclusive English cattle farmer with a deep connection to the Maasai people. Bill saves Cecily's life when a lion charges her on a bush safari.

Electra's crisis deepens. During a shoot in Rio de Janeiro, her sister Maia finds her intoxicated with a young model and suggests rehab, but Electra refuses. Back in New York, Electra finds among Mitch's returned belongings the letter Pa Salt left for her. It confirms Stella Jackson as her grandmother and includes the same photograph Stella had sent. She calls Stella, who visits that evening but confronts Electra about her substance use, revealing she lost her own daughter to addiction. Electra reacts with fury, and Stella leaves. That night, Electra takes too many sleeping pills with alcohol. Maia alerts Mariam, who enlists Tommy, an army veteran keeping watch outside Electra's building. Tommy uses his medical training to help Electra through the crisis. His reminder that she is simply a human being like everyone else breaks through her defenses, and Electra agrees to enter rehab. Stella returns the next morning to ensure Electra follows through.

In the historical thread, a doctor examines Cecily and tells her she is pregnant from her encounter with Julius. Bill Forsythe, having overheard Cecily's distress, proposes marriage, offering a practical arrangement: He will raise the baby as his own in exchange for a wife. Cecily accepts, recognizing it protects her child and her reputation. They marry at Mundui House, Kiki's home on Lake Naivasha, but Cecily develops preeclampsia, a dangerous pregnancy condition. Surgeons save her life, but her baby daughter, Fleur, dies shortly after birth. The doctors tell Cecily she will never bear children again. Bill, stricken with guilt for being absent, tells Cecily he loves her for the first time.

At The Ranch, a rehabilitation center in Arizona, Electra endures detox and begins therapy. She opens up, befriending Lizzie, a British woman with a food addiction, and Miles Williamson, a Harvard-educated Black lawyer who returns annually to maintain his sobriety. Miles has brought Vanessa, an 18-year-old he rescued from the streets who is HIV-positive and has experienced heroin addiction, to The Ranch for treatment. In a breakthrough session, Electra reveals she was locked in a cupboard by girls at boarding school, an experience that destroyed her ability to trust. When Vanessa attempts suicide, Electra finds her and stays at her bedside through the night with Miles. The crisis clarifies Electra's purpose: She wants to help young people like Vanessa and use her fame for good.

After Fleur's death, Bill gives Cecily a puppy, and she withdraws into isolation at Paradise Farm, their homestead in the Kenyan highlands. Bill asks Cecily to shelter Njala, the pregnant teenage daughter of a Maasai chief who must hide from her clan. Cecily visits the girl daily and forms a bond. After Njala gives birth and vanishes, Cecily discovers a newborn baby girl buried under leaves in the woods, left to die. She rescues the infant and names her Stella. After a fierce argument, Bill agrees to keep the baby. A Maasai woman named Lankenua, arranged by Bill, poses as the child's mother while Cecily raises Stella as her own. On Christmas Day, Bill and Cecily share their first genuine kiss, and their marriage becomes real.

Years later, Cecily takes Stella to New York. When her mother, Dorothea, discovers Stella sleeping in Cecily's bed, she erupts in racist fury. Cecily walks out, choosing Stella over her family, and settles in Brooklyn. She teaches at a school for Black children founded by Rosalind Jackson, a former classmate, and joins the civil rights movement. Since cross-racial adoption is impossible, Rosalind legally adopts Stella, giving her the surname Jackson.

In the present, Electra returns from rehab and rebuilds her life with Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, running, and the support of Mariam and Miles. Coordinates left by Pa Salt reveal she was found at Hale House in Harlem, a home for babies born to parents with addictions. Stella, a prominent civil rights activist, tells Electra the rest of the story. Stella grew up in Brooklyn with Cecily and became a civil rights lawyer. At the 1963 March on Washington, she conceived a daughter, Rosa, whom Cecily helped raise. Rosa descended into crack cocaine addiction as a teenager and disappeared. Pa Salt later traced the truth: Rosa had given birth to Electra in a Harlem crack den and bled to death. A bystander took the newborn to Hale House, where Pa Salt found and adopted her. Bill returned to Brooklyn after 23 years to reconcile with Cecily, and they spent six happy months together in Kenya before Cecily contracted malaria and died. Bill later died in Kenya and left everything to Stella.

Electra processes the devastating truth about her mother's death but finds relief in finally knowing her origins. She and Miles acknowledge their romantic feelings for each other. When Stella asks Electra to speak at the Concert for Africa at Madison Square Garden, Electra agrees. Surrounded by Miles, Stella, Vanessa, Mariam, Tommy, and Lizzie, Electra walks onstage and delivers a speech about her addiction and her mother's death, launching the Rosa Jackson Drop-in Center Project. Senator Barack Obama joins her onstage to endorse her cause. Miles tells Electra he loves her just before she steps into the spotlight.

At Atlantis, Electra's sisters watch her speech on television. Pa Salt's lawyer, Georg Hoffman, arrives with news: After years of searching, they may have found the missing seventh sister, Merope.