Anna and Jennie live in a historic bungalow along the Chicago River in the Ravenswood neighborhood. Their parents are no longer alive, but they made sure that the young women would be taken care of. And sometimes, it seems as if the house is alive - unexplained drips, creaks, and other noises that they can’t explain. Even so, Anna works diligently to repair and take care of it, on top of taking care of Jennie, who is mentally unwell. As a way to connect with the outside world, Anna hosts a podcast where she talks about Chicago’s unknown history. And when she gets a message from a listener, she considers the world outside of her strange home and sick sister. But the closer Anna becomes to her new friend, the more paranoid Jennie becomes. There’s also a growing number of men that go missing, whose bodies eventually turn up in the Chicago River. And when a couple of detectives start investigating near the women’s house, Anna and Jennie worry about what their connection to it is. Forgotten Sisters by Cynthia Pelayo is a psychological thriller in which the women’s connection to Chicago’s tragic past and present is more prominent than they ever imagined.

Even so, the story’s structure was a bit confusing. Anna’s inner monologue became redundant and slowed the pace immensely. Jennie’s dialogue was similar - she didn’t make sense much of the time, although it became obvious that it was intentional. I also wish that we got more of the investigative side of the story (Kawolski’s POV). There were also some plot points that I never fully understood. Even so, all of the details led up to an ending that left me satisfied.

DNF at 30%
Unfortunately I just cannot connect with anything here and I find myself a little bored.
I know there will be plenty of fans of this one, but it's just not for me right now.

WARNING: get ready to jump aboard the unpopular opinion train again!!

I'm honestly SO sad this happened again. I mean, I was intrigued as soon as I saw the cover, but it was the blurb that made me want to add Forgotten Girls straight away. This story sounded absolutely fantastic with its mysterious house, the drownings, the podcast angle, the magical realism/horror vibe... And I fully expected to have found a new favorite. Unfortunately the complete opposite ended up happening, and I had to make the difficult decision to turn this book into my second DNF of the year. Sometimes books just aren't ment to be!

First of all I have to stress that I still love the premise of this story. There is SO much potential to be found, but somehow the execution was not what I expected. I'm suspecting this is probably a 'it's not you, it's me' problem, as more lyrical, literary and otherworldly writing is never a big hit for me... But the fact is that I clashed horribly with the writing style, up until the point that it almost became torture to keep reading. It's quite an unique style, and this often provokes strong reactions... Sadly in my case it was a negative one. To make things worse, I absolutely despised how Jennie talks, which was probably the worst part of the story I did read.

Another thing I struggled with was the fact that nothing seemed to make sense AT ALL. I mean, I do like a bit of a mystery and magical realism vibe, but I had seriously no clue what was happening and this feeling got old fast. Sure, things might have become more transparent later on, but if you are already struggling with the writing and characters as well, it's hard to find the motivation to plough on. In fact, I did try to put Forgotten Girls on hold for a bit and pick it up later, hoping I was just in the wrong reading mood for it... But as soon as I started reading again, I was in the exact same state of confusion and aversion as the first time around. I simply couldn't find the motivation to keep going to find out if things improved later on, and I decided to throw in the towel once and for all.

I do have to stress that this is probably a case of simply not being the right fit for this story, although I do have to say that I was absolutely fascinated by the blurb itself. Between the fact that I clashed horribly with the writing style and that I basically I had no clue what was going on, Forgotten Girls sadly wasn't my cup of tea... But I've seen others waxing lyrical about this story, so don't give up on my account if you think this might be the book for you.

Welcome back to Chicago. Cina Pelayo has a lot to say about it. Through her pen, Chicago is a real place, vibrant and full of history and diversity. But Chicago is also a magical kingdom spoken of only in fairy tales, populated by creatures as magical and dangerous as that might imply. Pelayo’s fairytales are not comforting bedtime stories. In her world, magic is as dangerous as the people and creatures who wield it. Fairy tales have teeth here.

Anna and Jennie are sisters who dwell by the river, dealing with the drownings nearby and loneliness. Anna copes by running a podcast to chronicle the tragic histories of Chicago and its myriad of hauntings. But the connection to the river outside and what lurks within will soon come to define them.

Pelayo’s writing is full of heart and wonder. Few can capture the sheer, breathtaking scope of a modern fairy tale the way she can in “Forgotten Sisters.” The book is a haunting modern gothic with mystery and darkness, contrasting the magic of stories with the hard edge of Chicago itself. The characters are a delight and Pelayo weaves them in and out of the story to interact with even the darkest of happenstance. If there are any flaws, the dialogue sometimes has trouble landing to capture the plot, but the flaws are minor.

It’s an alluring story of danger, sung by the true siren of Chicago, and will not be forgotten any time soon.

Pelayo's "true love" letter to Chicago reads like the stuff fairy tales should be made of. Haunting, dreamlike, and all the while resonating on so many levels of the human experience, this is Pelayo's best work to date. Run, jump, or swim to your nearest bookstore on March 19th and buy a copy of this one, because it's worth every penny and page turn.

This is the first book that I've read by Cynthia Pelayo. I went in expecting a horror/ghost story. It does have a gothic horror element to it. The story is narrated in the POV of Anna but it also alternates to two detectives that are investigating a string of drownings that are taking place in the Chicago River.
The story had a good mix of historical non-fiction stories that are incorporated which I enjoyed as I hadn't heard of some of them however there were some sections in which is from Anna's POV that drag out a lot and don't seem to fit the story.
Overall the storyline was different than what I have read before. The story did start to pick up for me towards the last part of the book and I did enjoy how the story got tied together.
Thank you to Netgalley and Thomas & Mercer. All opinions are my own.

A very emotional and enthralling story about grief and love and honoring the dead. Cynthia brings Chicago through the ages to life in a compelling way. Awesome story.

Thanks to NetGalley for the eARC of this novel. I really wanted to like this book because it is a love letter to Chicago, but there was a lot going on that did not work together. A haunted house, a fairy tale, the Titanic, a serial killer, a police procedural, a romance, even old phones and phonographs. It's like the entire history of Chicago and every water mythology and/or tragedy got stuffed into one book. The scenes with the detectives are more compelling than the scenes in the house, which are honestly just confusing because of all the active water analogies at work, but the detective work is secondary. The passages containing Chicago history were interesting but many did not really fit in the book. The concept of the book needed to be streamlined, with one or two ideas taking precedence.

I enjoyed this Gothic-style story that also incorporates horror, noir, fairy tales, and mystery! Pelayo consistently delivers great storytelling!

Cynthia Pelayo has once again written a unique and eerie horror novel, this time bringing in dark fantasy elements that combine with a police procedural, all against the backdrop of Chicago. We have sisters Anna and Jennie, living in a house on the Chicago River that appears to be haunted. Anna longs for a life beyond the home, but Jennie clings to her, all while their shared trauma makes Anna unable to let go. I loved how Pelayo made this dark fairy tale feel like a building sense of dread and unreliability, as outside of Anna and Jennie's periphery there are two cops who are trying to solve a strange set of drownings of local men, all found in the Chicago River under strange circumstances. Pelayo mixes the fantastical, the horror, and the hard boiled crime tale all together into something unique and eerie, all while being a love letter to the history of Chicago and the darkness, and hope, that lives within it.

FORGOTTEN SISTERS is another well done horror story from Cynthia Pelayo.

I wasn’t quite sure in which genre I would put FORGOTTEN SISTERS by Cynthia Pelayo. Sometimes women’s fiction, sometimes romance, and sometimes a whodunnit. Whatever genre, this one was a fun ride to the dark side.

Anne spends her days cleaning the (haunted?) house in her childhood home, the Avondale and caring for her sister, Jennie, who refurbishes gramaphone motors, cranks and gears. Jennie also tends to wander the village at night, and never reveals to anyone where she goes or what she does.

When bodies of young men begin turning up in the river, seasoned Detective Kowalski and newbie Detective Rodriguez are assigned to hunt down the serial killer. As clues mount and they begin to zero in on Jennie, Anne does everything in her power to keep the wolves from Jennie’s door, saying she’s unavailable or away from the home. What’s she hiding? Where will the next body wash ashore and what clues will it hold?

I really enjoyed this novel. When I thought I was going down one path, I was very surprised to see I should have taken the other way at the fork in the road. The author was a very adept at putting me in the wrong frame of mind. The conclusion was a stunning surprise. I will certainly be looking in for more from Cynthia Pelayo as she is an author I will be watching.!

Thank you to that Netgalley and Thomas and Mercer for this ARC opportunity. All opinions are my own, and given voluntarily.

Thanks to NetGalley, Thomas & Mercer, and Amazon Publishing for this copy of "Forgotten Sisters."

This was my first time reading a book by author Pelayo and now I'm totally intrigued by her writing style.

It's a retelling of "The LIttle Mermaid" fairy tale and features a historical disaster from Chicago in 1915 which I later searched to find out more about it.

The writing was lyrical, dreamlike, and gothic but also mixed in police detectives investigating current murders plus there was the back story of the sisters' parents recent death.

The story flow was sometimes a little disconnected which was confusing to follow but I thought the second half of the book was much better than the first.

I read this book in one sitting. The book is so engaging and compelling. The vibe of the book is atmospheric. The author has added the elements of horror to psychological suspense with history and mystery. I loved the book and would recommend it.

There are two sisters; Anna and Jenni. They have lost their parents in an accident but they have been living in grief since then. They live in the historic bungalow on the Chicago River. The mystery of the bungalow and the river are interlinked with the past. The house has a ghostly history and it is full of strange occurrences. Chicago has a tragic history and people are going missing in the river. Anna had started doing podcast to avoid the feeling of lonesome. But her world turns upside down when she try to move forward and her sister goes missing. She believed in Little mermaid story, Ghostly tales and the gruesome things she has experienced. But when the truth comes out in light, It splatters light upon their unsettling lives and the delusions.

Thanks to the Publisher, Author and Netgalley.

I’m at a loss.

I’m still shocked this book was put out by a traditional, big 5 publisher.

This was just…bad.

Poorly executed, over written, and under edited.

Dialogue, despite the explanation that comes later, is ridiculous at best and unreadable at worst.

There’s nothing driving this story. The conflict is hidden in meandering monologues that aren’t revealed until the final act, and even still, they are unsatisfying. What’s driving our protagonist is hidden in vague references and when revealed, glossed over too quickly and leaves one unmoored and unsatisfying.

Because we never connect with these characters. Always held at arms length. Filtered through language meant to be cerebral and romantic while being circuitous and repetitive and boring instead.

I’m not one to need much plot or “story” but there is so little here. There are, however, loads of side stories explaining factoids we don’t need or never ending explanations of how our character feels. Which would be useful if those feelings ever changed, but they don’t. We get it after ten pages, but your going to get a hundred more.

The sister Jennie appearing only to intone some cryptic, oracle at Delphi type statement drove me up a wall. Language can be beautiful. But it should serve a purpose, and it doesn’t here. All I could feel was the author screaming to the reader was “pick me; choose me; love me.”

Multiple, glaring errors that should have been picked up by even a casual edit.

The detectives POV was unnecessary, and there’s one section where we slip into a side character’s POV for what purpose? Uneven and inconsistent, and again, easily fixed with a decent edit.

I absolutely in good faith cannot recommend.

The author brings us a tale that is both mysterious and sad and Im here for it. For fans of ghost stories that mine memory, fairy tales, and/or mystery resulting in immersive, heartbreakingly beautiful stories this is for you.

Lots of heart and some horror tropes that I enjoy: The relationship between a loved one and a scary house, most prominently. The sister dynamic is the perfect amount of creepy and unusual to keep me interested in the story. My only issue is that there were a few spots that were overcome by exposition that felt clunky and took me out of the story for a spell. Otherwise, great story that includes a lot of awesome research.

A new Cynthia Pelayo book is a pleasure. The author has a unique voice and can make you love even the most unlikable of characters.

Now, Forgotten Sisters absolutely surprised me. I expected fairy tales and the weird and dark history of Chicago (honestly, Pelayo makes me want to visit Chicago more and more each book), but I wasn’t expecting…Shirely Jackson!

This reads like a dark and supernatural police procedure mixed with We Have Always Lived in the Castle – and a ton of Merricat! I was so here for it.

The writing style moves between a more mystical and fantastical style and a harder, crime filled edge. It depends on which character’s head we’re in and the disparity works well.

Above all, the author brings us a tale that is both mysterious and enormously sad and I simply loved it.

• ARC via Publisher

This was a beautiful lyrical story that swept me up in its magic right from the start, the pacing in this was fantastic you can tell you're reading the work of a poet it was suspenseful whilst also introspective,
the prose is stunning and beautifully written, Cynthia weaves magic with words somehow making the many different elements of this work together seamlessly, police procedural, true crime, thriller, gothic ghost story and dark fairy tale? You got it all here, deftly drawn characters that you root for and will struggle to forget, this was a lush gothic tale about grief, murder and family.

An ambitious mix of history and horror that holds on to its secrets a little too long. Our primary narrator, Anna, is clearly unreliable as her sections contain increasingly impossible occurrences and bizarrely unnatural dialog. While I enjoy piecing together a fractured narrative, this one doesn’t even provide many breadcrumbs until the novel is nearly complete. Instead of feeling a sense of mystery, I was often frustrated. The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward feels similar, but is executed in a much more satisfactory manner.

The novel is littered with non-fiction sections on the history of Chicago, many of which I did not know, and that are frequently fascinating. Pelayo does manage to weave these historical events into the conclusion of the novel in a way that was very satisfying and quite touching. While I find all the elements of the novel interesting (unreliable narrator, the mixing of history and myth), the narrative did not always tie them together successfully.

A little of "We Have Always Lived in a Castle" plus a police thriller and a sprinkle of fairy tales....and you have Forgotten Sisters by Cynthia Pelayo.

Sisters Anna and Jennie live in a historic home in the Ravenswood neighborhood in Chicago. The raging Chicago River is next to them, and has been part of their life for so long. Anna has a fairly successful podcast, all about the haunted and historic parts of Chicago. Jennie fixes audio devices and swans around the house in black nightgowns.

At the same time, men keep washing up on the banks of the Chicago River. Their bodies are bloated and destroyed and they keep adding up, one after the other. Two police detectives, Kowalski (counting down the days to retirement) and Rodriguez (a younger detective) are on the case.

Will the detectives find the reason and person behind the men in the river?

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OK. Anna, as a character, was fantastic. She had a yearning for more human interaction and love. It was kind of sweet, really. She is also putting a large time and monetary investment into the historic home, to restore it to its former glory.

The two detectives - loved them both. Their chapters were short, funny and helped move the story along quite well.

Then we have Jennie. Jennie, Jennie, Jennie. Overbearing, prone to dramatic monologues that sound like a one-act play, and just all around...kind of the worst.

BUT all of these people combined made for a fun read.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review.