The third sister: Sara Bleidel

What happens when you learn that someone in your life is still alive after thinking he was gone? Ilka Jensen lived in Denmark and uprooted to Racine, Wisconsin after inheriting her late father’s funeral home. He abandoned his family 30 years ago when Ilka was a child. Throughout her struggles to keep the funeral home afloat she has the help of someone  who knew her as Sister Eileen. But just who is Sister Eileen and why hide behind the guise of being a nun? Hiding from law enforcement and her past, Sister Eileen aka/ Lydia Rogers is a wanted fugitive. She’s been hiding for 12 years to hopefully not be executed in Texas where they sentenced her to death.

Things get violent when Ilka and Lydia devise a plan to help her escape by hiding her in a coffin and pretending to have to bring a body to another location. Men from her past come after her and the scene is priceless as she opens the lid of the coffin and you have to read and visualize it for yourself. But, in the previous novel Artie Sorvino her busy partner is critically injured and beaten by the men after Lydia causing great hardships on Ilka as the hospital insists on payment for his care and the insurance companies do not want to take him on but Lydia has 50,000 dollars hidden away in a bag that she left at the home and these me want but will Ilka use it to help Artie?

Added in Ilka has to deal with finding her father bringing him to the funeral home and his other two daughters that he becomes enveloped in as Amber is in the hospital and Leslie seems disconnected from the world and is now staying at the home.

Things get tense when dealing with the hospital, trying to get to know her father and then her mother shows up. Added in she enlists the help of her so called boyfriend to find Lydia for a huge fee. Finding Lydia was paramount to IIka as she’s the key to the mystery of the drugs she supposedly smuggled across the Mexican border in the bodies of dead babies.

The hospital wants money or Artie will be sent out without treatment they are unconcerned about his fate making it sound like U.S . hospitals are only worried about insurance payments or cash payments and not patient care. Added in although her mother and partner want to revamp the funeral home Ilka wants to get her father’s wife out of jail but will she change her statement and what about her stepsister will she support her too? Events get dangerous when the two thugs might have kidnapped Sister Eileen, the money hidden disappears and Jeff gets violent when he asks for payment and more when Ilka confronts him and learns he did not find Lydia and just where is she since someone was in her room in the funeral home? Anger festering within Ilka and a startling revelation when a Texas policeman shows up at the hotel she was staying at with her mother. Added in she realizes that fraud, blackmail and deception are all a part of Artie’s downfall and her guilt is huge.

The policeman enlightens her about Lydia and her brother Ben who wound up in a religious cult called God’s Will led by a corrupt man who used kids for his own pleasure and monetary gains. Killing children, send them out with nothing to fend for themselves and the history behind the cult is frightening yet this man thrives. Police corruption, brainwashing the town and members of the cult that are aware of his cruelty.

There are more that need to be safe as Ethan her nephew and his mother Fernanda are in hiding but are they safe? Lydia has more sisters and we meet one and her nieces as Ilka agrees to drive them to safety and to the person who runs the underground tunnel and hopefully get them to safety but can Calvin Jennings pull it off and be trusted?

The history behind the cult is chilling and what is done to children horrific as this man , Isaiah Burnes brainwashes the members of the cult and only some escape hoping to never return. But the emotional scars might never be healed without help and if the police do this right maybe he’ll pay.

Things become more violent when Jennings is killed ,Lydia is kidnapped and the mother of her nieces is forced back into the cult. Lives are at stake and Ilka is blindsided and hurt but what will the end bring? The tensions rise, the plans in place but one young boy’s life hangs in the balance and Ilka and Dorothy who cares for the family , devise a plan to save the two girls whose mother has been taken and it will take help from many sources to bring these cult members to justice. An ending that changes many lives and some beginnings and regrets dealt with as Ilka and Lydia learn about a betrayal, deception and deceit of someone they thought they could trust. Twists, turns and shockwaves are present as author Sara Blaedel creates an ending that will leave you understanding as Ilka might if she realizes the true definition of being The Third Sister.

Strong characters and a father who’s guilt and remorse have hampered his life and his relationship with Ilka what will the future bring?

Fran Lewis just reviews