As this is a sequel to The Good Luck Girls I’m not going to give much of a synopsis so as to avoid spoilers. The events in this book take place pretty much right after the end of the first book, and this book does not do any kind of recap of the events in the first book. So this is not a series that you can jump in at any point, you really have to have read the first book, and I would suggest reading it pretty recently to keep all the characters straight. Suffice it to say that Aster and the gang are still continuing the good fight against the land masters who hold dustbloods virtually captive. And even though the scope of that fight has broadened, there are still many who are willing to fight for what is right. And something that I appreciate in this book as well as the first one is that all of them are willing to get their hands dirty and fight themselves, even though they certainly aren’t trained for it. They don’t expect others to do something they aren’t willing to do.

Thank you to NetGalley & Macmillan-Tor/Forge for this advanced reader copy. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

The Sisters of Reckoning is the sequel to The Good Luck Girls, and this review may contain spoilers for the first book in the series. If you have not read The Good Luck Girls, please do not read any further (but do go read The Good Luck Girls, I cannot recommend it enough!)

Now that the Good Luck Girls have made it to freedom, Clementine and friends have escaped to Ferron, while Aster works with the Lady Ghosts to help with their mission. Things are worse than ever for the dustbloods. Frustrated with how slow the Lady Ghosts work, Aster decides to take things into her own hands to free the Good Luck Girls of Arketta. But things spiral and Aster inadvertently starts a revolution, seeking freedom for all the dustbloods in Arketta once and for all. But with limited allies and power, Aster and friends need all the help they can get.

The Sisters of Reckoning is a brilliant follow-up to the first book in the series, The Good Luck Girls. Like the first book, The Sisters of Reckoning mainly focuses on Aster. I love Aster’s character progression through the book. Where the first book lacked any love story for Aster The Sisters of Reckoning has Aster starting to explore her sexuality and question what she is looking for in a partner and even if she is capable of feeling romantic love for another person. The story focuses on Aster’s sexuality as she grapples with her trauma from her time at the welcome house.

Whereas the first book was more of an escape story, the sequel is about fighting back. Now that the Good Luck Girls are free, they set their sights on all the other good luck girls who are still imprisoned in their welcome houses. It also dives more into the general suffering of the dustbloods in Arketta, more so than just the Good Luck Girls.

The ending of this sequel was relatively definitive, but I would love to come back to the world in a future book and see how Arketta has evolved. I think the storyline has reached its natural end for Aster and friends, but I think this world has so much potential. I loved this book so much. It definitely did not disappoint!

Thank you to Tor Teen and Netgalley for the review copy. All opinions are my own.

I had been highly anticipating this conclusion to the Good Luck Girls duology and while there were things I liked- the ending was a satisfying ride and there is solid exploration of how trauma can impact your experiences with sexuality, handled in a thoughtfully nuanced way.

However, I also think this suffered from too many plot points that felt repetitive and didn't give the characters enough space to breathe. The book tried to accomplish too much too quickly, and either needed a simplified plot structure or to be reworked into a trilogy. Also if you are irritated by characters repeatedly making rash decisions without considering the consequences, this book will drive you up a wall because that seems to be all Aster does! Over and over she does things that put others at risk, clearly not thinking through the consequences. I appreciate her passion for justice, but she never really learns from anything and does things that could have led to even more severe consequences. Like outing a secret organization to a large group of people you just assume you can trust. I found her to be really frustrating, especially since there wasn't much of a growth arc in this, things just ended up working out largely in her favor.

I really loved the first book, and I was hoping this one give us more explanations of the world-building and expand on the characters and their relationships with each other. While there is a large cast of characters, the too-ambitious plot really pushes out spending time with most of them. Which is unfortunate because they're great characters. We also get Raven, a newly introduced trans character. Again, I really liked her but wanted more time with her.

Thematically I think this is addressing important topics like enslavement, prejudice, sex trafficking, and more. This book also gives more attention to the existence and role of indigenous people and the different kinds of oppression they face. Plus we get queer characters grappling with complex elements of their sexuality. All of that is great in principle, but I found the storytelling itself to be a little lacking. I received an advance copy of this book for review via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

thank you to Tor Teen for an arc in exchange for a honest review

I was really excited to read this book considering I enjoyed the first book The Good Luck Girls. The book started off really strong but around the 50% mark I was starting to get bored and the book dragged. I did enjoy how we met new characters. There was anxiety rep & trans rep. There is one part of the book towards the end that I was not a fan of (insta love) that didn’t make much sense to me. And the ending felt rushed and tied up too nicely.

I would have liked at least one more book in this series or maybe a couple more chapters in this one to better satisfy how I felt about the ending.

The Sisters of Reckoning had a lot to live up to as The Good Luck Girls was an absolutely stunning and excellent read, but it did it. I've rarely read a sequel that I've liked as much as this one.

This was just as hard-hitting as the first one if not more so. It tackled a lot of pressing subjects and controversies and threw a lot of emotional punches. This book addresses a lot of social issues and not at all subtly which I both appreciate and admire.

This is set almost a year after The Good Luck Girls ended. Clementine, Tansy, and Marrow are living new, safe lives outside the border and Aster is continuing to work for the Ghost Ladies, ferrying girls to safety when she can. Things have settled into a pattern that is disrupted when Aster finds out something new and goes rogue from what the Ghost Ladies have tasked her to do.

The characters are just as great as they were in the first one and I absolutely adored the addition of Raven, she's such a fun character and really added to the narrative. There is so much rep in this book and I love it. The writing is immersive and dynamic and whilst it took me a while to get through this book I loved every minute of it. I'm excited to see what's next from Charlotte Nicole Davis.

Thanks to Netgalley for an Arc of this in exchange for an honest review.

I was absolutely enthralled by this followup to Good Luck Girls!!! The first book was awesome but this is by far my favorite sequel I’ve read recently. Rebellion, a surprise reveal… Just awesome! It was a little slow moving in some areas but overall I did really enjoy it. Plus the coupling in this one 🥺

I really loved the first book in this duology, The Good Luck Girls, but for some reason The Sisters of Reckoning fell flat for me. I never felt invested in the characters and the story and I'm not sure why and it might just have been me. This book does expand on the world and the lives of the characters introduced in the first book and packs a strong message of resistance and uprising. Aster and the Good Luck Girls - as well as some new allies - take the fight to the ruling class and work to upend the cruel and unjust systems of oppression. I like that the cast of characters is diverse and features several LGBTQ+ characters. There's also important conversations about sexuality and the intersection of trauma and attraction and repulsion.

An adventure-packed follow up to The Good Luck Girls! I read the first one right when it came out, so it took me a little bit to get my bearings. Davis drops you right into the action with Aster and if you've forgotten more than a few details (like me), be prepared for a rough beginning. However, I eventually got my bearings and was immediately sucked in. There's such an intensity to this book - it's adventure with a purpose. This got a bit more into the political situation of Arketta and rounded out the world. I honestly couldn't have predicted the plot from the blurb or the previous book, which delighted me. I did have a problem with the pacing, though. The ending was way too abrupt. I literally looked at how much at had left of the book, reread a few paragraphs, and stared in confusion. I wish the conclusion and denouement had been given more attention. Since it was at the end of the book, it likely overimpacted my opinion of the story. Overall, though, the book was a delight with characters that I just want to hug.

This is exactly the sequel that Aster and Clementine deserved. It builds so much on the hints we got from book one, the oppression escalating and now us seeing it all in vivid detail on a grand scale. There's less physical movement, less obvious tension in our group, less desperation. What we get instead is a revolution built from the ground up

Seeing Aster rouse the dustbloods, the different rebel factions from escapees to Indigenous nations to people still under the oppressors' thumbs - but also seeing her crack under the pressure of her doubts and the lingering effects of her trauma were so important. Like the open conversations about how trauma can impact your sexual orientation and interpersonal relationships, but also getting to see these characters truly accept what that means - and also discuss the process of recovery and giving each other time and space to heal and grow and change. It was these kinds of quiet moments that really made this book shine.

When I finally managed to sit down with this book, I tore through it, with the last 30% practically flying by, even though it wasn't action packed. It felt so much more realistic, to see the desperation and the waiting and feel the tension. Bravo, Davis, bravo.

TL,DR: The Sisters of Reckoning is a fantastic follow-up to Charlotte Nicole Davis' The Good Luck Girls. A wonderful combination of action, hope, tension, and deep emotion. There's no need to re-read TGLG if your memory is spotty, but newbies to the series should start with Book 1.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Tor Teen for an ARC of this book.
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I finished The Sisters of Reckoning with tears in my eyes. This book was an emotional rollercoaster in the best way possible; while I usually try predicting what a writer's up to, here, I was happy to be along for the ride.
I'd forgotten much of The Good Luck Girls aside from my enjoyment of the story in the two years since reading it. Opening the first page, thus, was a slow re-immersion into the world of the story: favors, raveners, shadows, true names. I savored every moment of it: that brief trill of recognition, that moment of oh, right. There's a gentleness and seamlessness to the way Davis leads us back into the waters; everything seems natural and unforced, like you're meeting old childhood friends, not fictional characters.
(If you haven't read Book 1 yet, just go and read it now! It's a fantastic read for those who enjoy action-packed stories with diversity and love at their cores. That's all you need to know - there are spoilers from here on out!)
The Sisters of Reckoning follows the young women of the first book. Sold into Welcome Houses (i.e., brothels) as children, our Good Luck Girls escaped to freedom. While the majority of them have snuck across the border to Ferron, Aster remains behind, working with the Lady Ghosts to save more Good Luck Girls. When a new Welcome House is set to open—with girls as young as 13 now being offered up as "comfort" to the men who seek them—she realizes she must act on an entirely new scale.
Sisters of Reckoning is a tense and heartfelt novel about fighting for what is right against insurmountable odds and the power that we have if we unite against oppression and evil. It's a stellar sequel to Book 1; I enjoyed Reckoning even more, and recommend it to anyone who enjoyed the first book. There's also fantastic queer rep in this book that made my heart sing.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher I was able to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
***
The Sisters of Reckoning concludes this western inspired dystopian duology.
***
The first book in this duology was focused on Aster and her friends escaping the Welcome House and trying to survive the harsh landscape and unusual dangers (ghoulish ghost creatures that hunt the living) and find a path towards freedom (or at least out of Arketta). Most of those things at least came true by the end of the book, most of their party did escape Arketta but Aster chose to stay behind to try and help other good luck girls like her and her friends looking for safety.
This book picks up some time after that choice was made. Aster both loves her work and is frustrated by the lack of impact she makes with it. Because the group she is with wants to stay on the right side of the law as much as possible it involves a lot of quiet maneuvering and lots of planning and only so much can happen, only so many other good luck girls can be saved that way. Aster feels the pressure to do more, save them all. With a new welcome house opening Aster and her new friend Raven go to investigate it only to find horrifying news, an unexpected reunion and maybe the chance Aster has been looking for to make the difference she’s been wanting.
***
The first book was more a survival story, this book though is a revolution. Aster and gang are here not just for themselves this time but all the dustbloods who’ve been victimized by what’s been happening in Arketta.
I liked this book, maybe not as much as I loved the first book because the other female characters that made up that book besides Aster were more present and center stage there then they are here. In this book there is a bigger cast so a lot of the interactions and relationships that made the first book really pop for me weren’t as present in here.
I did like that this book seemed to focus a little more on the trauma Aster went through as a good luck girl and how it affects her even now and her interactions, and how she worries that maybe the way she thinks about relationships are always going to be overshadowed by that. It’s not treated or cured but it is addressed .
Still a great book though.

the sisters of reckoning picks up a year after the events of the good luck girls. aster has been quietly smuggling other escaped girls across the border, but news of a new welcome house drives her to take more direct action. reunited with her sister and the friends they escaped with, she sets her sights on not only closing the welcome houses but freeing all dustbloods.

this is a book about resistance, and i really like how charlotte nicole davis handled that. we have characters and resistance groups working within the current system, and then we have others who believe the existing system needs to be torn down entirely, as well as a range who fall somewhere in the middle, and i think it’s so important for ya readers in particular to see those arguments and discussions between people who are all well-meaning.

that said, this is a duology that really would have benefited from becoming a trilogy—the good luck girls is fast paced in the best way, but here that pacing rushes the story along too quickly. this is a huge rebellion and condensing it into one book resulted in some very repetitive sections and a conclusion that was less climactic than it should have been. the ending, in and of itself, was perfect—it just needed more build up.

the relationships also suffered as a result of the pacing. i feel like i know less about mallow/tansy and clementine/zee than i did when i started this book. i really love the bond between the five girls and zee, and i wish we’d gotten to see more of that here. on the plus side, we had a great new character, raven, and the endgame for aster that i’d been rooting for since the first book. (she and violet remain my favorite characters.)

i love the world davis has created, but the sisters of reckoning tried to accomplish too much too quickly and as a result it ended up sacrificing some of the elements that made the first book so special.

Sequels are always hard for me to review without giving too much away about the story itself and what happened during the first book, but all I can say is that this is exactly the sequel I wanted for Good Luck Girls.

The Sisters of Reckoning picks up right where Good Luck Girls left off, and actually did a great job of reminding the reader what had happened without doing a complete recap (which I really appreciated since it had been almost a year since I read GLG). The first few chapters of the book focus solely on Aster and her life after everything that had happened. But quickly she’s reunited with her friends and they’re taking on new and more intense challenges. I know I said the same thing in my review for Good Luck Girls, but I. LOVE. THESE. CHARACTERS. Charlotte Nicole Davis has built such a strong, diverse and well rounded group of girls, and I just fell in love with all of them all over again, but especially Aster. Aster is so strong, no matter the circumstances, and is a character that a lot of people, but especially high school girls, can see themselves in. I loved the way her character developed and grew as both books went on, and the woman she becomes by the end is amazing. The Sisters of Reckoning is a fun, dystopian western at its surface, but underneath is layered with so many important messages and themes such as self acceptance, race, classism and so many other things that really just add to the story. I will continue to recommend this series to anyone that I can, because I definitely think that it’s one that deserves more hype than it has gotten!

The Sisters of Reckoning is the sequel to Charlotte Nicole Davis's 2019-release, The Good Luck Girls; it's one I have been very highly anticipating. Truly a powerful follow-up, I felt like Davis's writing really blossomed within these pages!

After successfully fleeing their Welcome House, Aster remained in Arketta and has become a Lady Ghost, while her fellow Green Creek girls have now settled themselves in the country of Ferron, across the border. With her work as a Lady Ghost, Aster continues to assist Good Luck girls to escape from their various Welcome Houses; but the progress is slow.

When Aster hears that her enemy, the despicable landmaster Jerrod McClennon, is planning to open a brand new Welcome House, as well as lower the age nationwide that girl's will experience their Lucky Night to 13, she knows she has to do something. It is no longer good enough to try to save one girl at a time. Aster wants to free all dustbloods from the the landmasters who oppress, abuse and degrade them.

She plans to hit them where it hurts; their money sources. Gathering up the old crew, as well as some bold new allies, Aster leads a movement, known as The Reckoners, who are willing to fight for a new system for Arketta. Sacrifices will need to be made and the fight may be long and bloody, but Aster and friends, feel like they have nothing left to lose. They are tired, they're frustrated, but they are not weak and they will not rest until they get the justice they deserve.

Y'all this is an impactful story. Davis did a great job of expanding and building on the groundwork that she laid in the first book. There is a ton of thoughtful social commentary woven throughout the narrative; it's not subtle and I appreciated that. The issues Aster and the other Good Luck Girls are dealing with are not unique to them; they're systemic and Aster realizes they must tear down the system in order to build a new one where dustbloods can be free.

I loved watching Aster grow in confidence and leadership ability. She was still suffering from PTSD related to her time in the Welcome House and that was handled beautifully as well.

My only slight criticism would be somewhere in the middle, it began to feel a little drawn out. The pace decreased a bit and some of the circumstances felt repetitive, but overall, this is an incredible continuation to this story and I loved the ending!

If you haven't picked up <i>The Good Luck Girls</i> yet, you really should. It would be the perfect time to binge the two back-to-back!! I personally would love to see more from Davis in this world. A hearty thank you to the publisher, Tor Teen, for providing me with a copy of this to read and review. Davis is so talented and I definitely plan to pick up anything she writes!!!

One of my absolute favorite books last year was The Good Luck Girls, I loved it so much that I gave away two copies in giveaways because I wanted people to experience this amazing book! I was worried that the sequel wouldn’t hold up but I needn’t have; The Sisters of Reckoning is the sequel that The Good Luck Girls deserved!

You can find my review of The Good Luck Girls if you scroll (way down) my feed or on my GoodReads. On to my review which I’m going to keep as short and spoiler-free as possible!

Months after the Good Luck Girls crossed the scab we find Aster working with the Lady Ghosts in Arketta, helping to smuggle girls across the border to safety. The others are in Ferron where they’ve started new lives in relative safety. When Aster attends a town meeting held by her nemesis McClennon, she hears the worst news possible – a Welcome House will be opening in Arketta and the age of the girls on their ‘Lucky Night’ has been dropped from 16-years-old to 13-years-old and worse, the housemistress is an original Green Creek Lucker, one that crossed the scab with Aster and the others. It’s with this news that Aster makes a choice and thus begins a revolution against the Landmasters.

This is about as much as I can summarize without becoming spoilerish. I really want to point out what I love about this duology: the sense of good triumphing over evil, of people joining forces to right years of wrong-doing and to upend a system that keeps people down and characters that feel like my own sisters.

There is violence, there is heart-break, and there are badass characters doing some morally gray shit that I’m rooting like hell for. There’s the same powerful sense of sisterhood and bravery and even as I cried with some of their losses, I rejoiced in their gains. So, to say this is an emotional and thought-provoking book is an understatement and just as I said with The Good Luck Girls, I will say with The Sisters of Reckoning, READ THIS BOOK! And if you haven’t read the first in the duology, I highly recommend that you do.

My thanks to @TorTeen and the author Charlotte Nicole Davis @CNDWrites for this gifted DRC.

The Good Luck Girls’ adventure continues in The Sisters of Reckoning, where escape wasn’t the only goal, freedom is. For every other good luck girl in Arketta, as well as all dustbloods.

Aster stays with the Lady Ghosts, working through the painfully slow processes to help individual girls escape. But she’s frustrated by the pace at which they’re working, which isn’t wrong. As stories of her group’s escape and escapades travel, other dustbloods are inspired to rebel – prompting those in power to come up with even more onerous and stringent rules. When one of them is to start the Good Luck Girls’ “lucky night” at age thirteen, Aster sees red. And departs on her own mission to burn down every single welcome house in Arketta.

The Sisters of Reckoning is more Aster’s story than the group camaraderie we got with The Good Luck Girls (even if Clem, Mallow, Tansy, and Zee come back to help foment rebellion). She’s working with the Scorpions, dreams up an audacious plan, gets the Lady Ghosts’ participation, and soon Arketta’s landowners are railing – and quaking – at her name.

What I like about Aster is that she’s not perfect, and she knows it. And I like that she’s not coddled when she’s not perfect. I also like that she figures out that it’s ok to be her and not who others expect her to be. All in all, I quite enjoyed The Sisters of Reckoning, and look forward to reading more from Davis.

drey’s rating: Excellent!

Thank you Macmillan-Tor Forge/ Tor Teen and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'm not a western fan at all, but this book and The Good Luck girls are the only exceptions.

This book picked up where the first book had left off, Aster ferrying girls for The Lady Ghosts and Violet missing presumed dead.

While Aster loves the community and the support of The Lady Ghosts, she's chaffing at the bit to Do Something. The passive activism may get things done, but it's not enough and while The Lady Ghosts are going about things legally, hundreds of girls are still suffering.

Aster is spurred into action by the reappearance of Violet and this time they're not going to run, they're going to take the whole system down.

If you're after a feminist western with a complex political system and fantastic world busing this is the book for you.

3.5 stars, the start was a little slow, but after the first 6-7 chapters the story really picked up for an enjoyable ride.

This read was everything my intersectional feminist heart could want... A beautiful continuation of Good Luck Girls that shows the inside workings after the first spark of revolution. I especially loved the continuing message that we all get free together. Go. Read. This. Duology. 🔥

I received an ARC from the publisher and am voluntarily posting a review.

The Sisters of Reckoning is a great followup to The Good Luck Girls. While the first book saw the main group on their journey to freedom, this one starts with Aster staying behind to help other girls escape, although she ultimately finds that their methods aren’t fast enough to combat the further exploitation of even younger girls, compelling her to act and for the other girls to reunite to forcefully bring about change.

Like the first book, it’s very much rooted in the history of racism and sexism, especially with the impacts of slavery on Black women.

I really liked Aster, especially since she seemed to be the one this book was focused on, with her role helping other girls beyond the main group. But all of them are reckoning with what happened in their pasts, and trying to effectively bring about real change against the oppressors without giving into similar vile methods that they’ve employed, which is a great conflict.

I was really confused by the romance though. If the text was suggesting Aster would end up with anyone, I would have guessed it would be Eli, since they have many good interactions with each other, providing a contrast for the negative experiences she had at the Welcome House. However, she ends up with someone else, with whom she doesn’t spend much page time with, resulting in the romance being unbelievable.

I enjoyed this book just as much as the prior book, and am excited to see what Charlotte Nicole Davis does next. If you also enjoyed the first book, you will not be disappointed with this sequel.

4.25 Stars

Content Warnings at end of review.

Thank you to Tor Teen and Netgalley for an arc of this book!

A few months after the events of The Good Luck Girls, Aster is helping the Lady Ghosts smuggle Good Luck Girls across the border to Ferron. But new developments with the Welcome Houses and the reappearance of Violet make Aster decide she needs to get things done faster than the Lady Ghosts are willing. The gang from the first book are back along with a few new faces as the Reckoners fight for the good of dustbloods everywhere.

I really loved this sequel! I thought it picked up in a good place--not too far from the ending of the original, but far enough that it warranted a separate book. I loved a particular relationship that happened that I can't say because spoilers, but I am VERY pleased with it. I thought the plot of this one was exciting and loved all the characters and the revolution!

I think this book could have benefitted from alternate pov's. While I love Aster, there were times when the pace of this book felt significantly slowed down because the main action was happening with someone else. If there had been a few pov's from other people it would have been able to keep the tempo going!

I also felt the ending wasn't paced greatly...It drug out for a while and then ended very abruptly. I did like how it ended and the resolution, just didn't love the pacing. I also wasn't a huge fan of the epilogue because I almost never like those, but this one wasn't too bad!

The strongest points of this duology are definitely the world-building, fantasy-western hybrid setting, and the themes. Davis does a wonderful job alegorizing slavery and indentured servitude here and I think the parallels between America's history and what is happening in Arketta are so well done. I loved this duology and definitely recommend it!

Pub date: August 10, 2021

Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Sexism, and Violence
Moderate: Torture, Trafficking, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, and Transphobia