Nice to read. I'm a bit tired of the bad guys having stuff up their sleeve, but I'm glad Reese finally managed to get some maturity. ( )

This is a super good book and builds on the first two books perfectly: yeah, you guessed it, it all kicks off with the Eldritch.

It appears that when you get to book 4, A Rose Point Holiday, that it fits in just before the Epilogue at the end of Laisrathera, so you may wish to pause this book at that point and read the fourth book and then come back to the Epilogue: your choice, as always.

All said and read: great writing, great pacing, great characters, just all round good sci-fi with a nice hint of fantasy tropes courtesy of the Eldritch.

And as with the first two books, i'm going to dive straight into the next book, A Rose Point Holiday.   I think it says a lot for a book series when you just pile straight through all the books without any inbetweenie reads. ( )

[SPOILERS FOR ROSE POINT IN THIS REVIEW. Though if you're reading this before you read Rose Point...?]

One might think that after this many, I'd get tired of writing reviews for [a:M.C.A Hogarth|5777544|M.C.A Hogarth|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-d9f6a4a5badfda0f69e70cc94d962125.png]'s work. That I would get bored of trying to find something to criticize just so that I sound like I'm not getting paid to say nice things about her. That somehow, I would grow weary of reading about fuzzy people in space trying to deal with decidedly non-fuzzy people in space.

...but then again, one might not know me very well.

Laisrathera is the long-awaited finale to the trilogy beginning with [b:Earthrise|18055987|Earthrise (Her Instruments, #1)|M.C.A. Hogarth|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1371448470s/18055987.jpg|25345243] and [b:Rose Point|20501099|Rose Point (Her Instruments 2)|M.C.A. Hogarth|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1389312582s/20501099.jpg|34355718], following Captain Theresa “Reese” Eddings and her intrepid crew on the TMS Earthrise...and of course, the on-going half-bubble-off soap-opera drama that she's found herself in with the xenophobic Eldritch. As any good lover of romance novels needs, Reese finds herself (occasionally begrudgingly) fond of “her” Eldritch: Hirianthial Sarel Jisiensire.

Ever since Rose Point, and Reese's connection to the Eldritch became decidedly more permanent, readers have been waiting to see what happens. How are the Eldritch going to take the betrayal we see in Rose Point? Is Reese going to have trouble on the Eldritch home world—especially since Hirianthial went away at the end of the second book? How is the familiar break going to come to pass, once Hirianthial gets back—since of course, we have to assume he gets back? And when in the name of the God and Lady are Reese and Hirianthial going to kiss?!

Hogarth promised us that all of this would come to fruition in the final book of the trilogy—and she did not disappoint.

The trouble I had with Laisrathera is more that it is exactly what this trilogy needed, and not necessarily what we had come to expect from the trilogy. Earthrise and Rose Point were both fairly action-based, lots of running around and getting hit by palmers and courting death. They were merchants and traders, running around like Captain Mal and Serenity, never sure of when their next meal or breath would be. But Laisrathera was a spy novel. This was cerebral and daunting and political and nuanced...and not what I was expecting. I'm not sure why, in the end, since that was the only way this series logically came to a close. The time of large scale fights was (for the most part) over, though there were a few knock-down throw-out battles to be had—but they weren't the focus. It was the subtlety of Baniel's interaction with Thaniet, and the Chatcaavan. It was the careful conversations with Liolesa and Hirianthial, and the hiding behind tumbling walls for Reese in her castle. It was the last moments of a game of Jenga, and not one you're willing to lose in a fit of anger.

That being said, it is a tremendously written spy novel. As always, Hogarth brings her world in tight and keeps you remembering things from previous novels—sometimes, ones outside of the trilogy!—and never lets go. The dialogue is beautifully nuanced, and allows the reader to make connections before it clarifies if you're right or wrong. The reader can be walked into a scene and not be sure of what's happening until a paragraph after it happens—and then when you realize and go back to read again, you can't understand how you missed it. The love is real, the vindication is real, the triumph and loss are real. And by the end, it feels like you've heard their story in totality...and still wish there could be more.

I won't say that I wouldn't love to see what happens next. The book opens up a whole new world and possibility, and of course I want to see where that leads. But the important thing about any trilogy, or any length series of work, is knowing when to end. There are many more stories to be told, but that doesn't mean that we need a book of them. A book requires a drive, and an conflict, and a strong plot to carry it. If that's not there, then it will feel flat and motionless, no matter how much we wanted to see whatever it happened to be come to fruition. I would worry about anything further.

...Though I won't say that I wouldn't love to see a series of short stories at least, based on the world they've created.

This has been cross-posted to my blog. ( )

I enjoyed Earthrise and Rose Point, but stopped reading there - I now can't recall whether that was because I lost interest or because I was saving the rest for later. I restarted with the next book, this one - and whipped through it and the rest of the series. M.C.A. Hogarth is a very dangerous author to me, if I have anything scheduled for the day...I stayed up until 2 am finishing this, and zombied through the next day. A lot of threads that started in the earlier books come to fruition here - character development on so many levels...There's a new and important character, Val, who shows up early in this book and plays a major part thereafter (more major than you'd think, even); he gets some development, but more importantly Reese and Hiran work through a lot of their blockages. And Irine and Sascha find some new angles too. It's hard, for the first part of the book, that everyone's split up - some by choice, some by enemy action (and some by friendly action). Things are complicated, plots and plans on all sides, Baniel displays even worse behavior - he had me feeling sorry for the Chatcaavan! - things go wrong in so many, many ways. And then the external group comes back, and threads start weaving together - the plans turn into action, communication helps, and wow. As a romance, it's excellent; as an action story, it's just as good. And the ending is absolutely perfect. ( )

This is a tough one to review. I like Hogarth's writings best when her “family” groups are together, and, unfortunately, the Her Instruments group was split up for most of this book. I was all set to say that this was an okay read that got better as the action picked up, and then the Earthrise “family” was reunited, the ending happened, and it was perfect.

Laisrathera starts a while after the end of Rose Point. Hirianthial has mostly healed up and is upset that Reese was left behind on his home world. The Alliance has agreed to help the Eldritch against their pirate and Chatcaavan invaders, but they're embroiled in their own battles and so the resources they can provide are limited. Meanwhile, Reese and Irine are doing what they can to oppose Baniel, his Chatcaavan ally, and Surela, Queen Liolesa's usurper, not knowing when Liolesa and Hirianthial will manage to bring reinforcements.

I have to be honest, the first third or so of this book was a slog for me. It felt like the characters were doing nothing but talking, planning, and debating. Yes, okay, so they were all in a tough situation with limited resources, and they had some difficult decisions to make, but it was kind of boring and I wanted them to finally do something.

Hirianthial's storyline picked up bit when he, Sascha, and Bryer joined the crew of the scout ship. That was the moment when I first realized that a big part of what I missed was the Earthrise “family." Solysyrril, Tomas, Narain, Lune, and Jasper were a tight-knit group that had been together almost ten years and felt like it.

What kept me going during Reese and Irine's storyline was Val. I loved him. He was a breath of fresh air: more informal than most Eldritch, irreverent, funny, and comfortable in his own skin. Hogarth surprised me by actually making me wonder if there was a chance he and Irine might end up together (An Eldritch and a Harat-Shar? Shocking!). And did I just imagine it, or was there really a moment where Irine thought Val and Belinor might make a good couple? I couldn't help but laugh at the thought that Irine might be shipping Val and Belinor while I was off shipping her and Val.

I was disappointed that Reese got to do so little in this book, but, at the same time, I liked that she was finally forced to think about how she'd behaved over the years and what she wanted to start doing differently if she survived. True, she'd stopped snapping at Hirianthial as far back as Rose Point, but in this book she examined the reasons behind her change. I kind of wish some of that had been more apparent back in Rose Point, because it might have made the shift in her behavior less jarring.

When Reese and Hirianthial were finally reunited, Reese knew what she wanted to say and do – no more beating around the bush. The romance fan in me cheered, and then Hirianthial reminded both Reese and me that, oh yeah, Baniel and the Chatcaavan still needed to be dealt with. Whoops! But there was time for more later on, and it was great.

The ending somehow managed to be incredibly satisfying while still leaving some things open. I want to know more about what happens to Surela, whether a couple Eldritch I liked ever end up with anybody, and how Reese, Hirianthial, Sascha, Irine and the rest are doing a few years down the line. Those are more the kind of “wants” that happen when characters feel alive than the “wants” that happen when something feels unfinished, however. The trilogy itself was wrapped up excellently, and brought back some of the “alien culture” stuff that I love about Hogarth's writings.

I loved that Hirianthial talking about his first wife led to an explanation about various levels of formality in Eldritch names and wasn't the jarring awkwardness it could have been. I loved that Hirianthial's gift for Reese recalled thoughts and feelings she'd had as early as the first book in the trilogy. I had to fight back the happy tears so that I could keep reading, the ending was so nice.

I think that, on the whole, I prefer Hogarth's Dreamhealers duology to the Her Instruments trilogy. Also, Rose Point is probably a better book, overall, than Laisrathera. But Laisrathera's ending? Wow. Perfect for the trilogy and perfect for Reese and Hirianthial. So very good.

Extras:

Two sections: "The Species of the Alliance Universe" and "The Seven Modes of Eldritch Grammar." I especially liked the one on Eldritch grammar, because I had somehow gotten it into my head that the various colors were telepathic/empathic shades of meaning. It turns out that the different "colors" are actually prefixes.

Rating Note:

I struggled with the rating for this. As I slogged through the beginning, I thought it might be a 3-star read. Then parts of it were good enough to rate 3.5 stars, and that ending was 4.5 or maybe even 5 stars. I settled on 4 stars.

(Original review, with read-alikes, posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) ( )