Truly one of the best trilogies I've ever read. An incredible conclusion to a complex, harrowing, action packed openly queer story. The characters are beautifully flawed and stupid and cruel and still deserving of empathy. Hot and sad and beautiful and difficult to reckon with. Incredible. Excited to read C.L. Clark's other work.

Come for the muscles and stay for the poignant and complex breakdown of colonial harm.

This trilogy is incredibly well-written and builds and builds and only gets better as it progresses. It asks some really hard and beautiful questions that I haven't seen properly tackled in a fantasy before: How much grace for racism and bigotry do we give to people who have been oppressed their whole lives? How many people's lives are a worthy price for a worthy cause? Is rebelling against an oppressive government the right thing to do if there is no alternative in place? Who gets to decide what a worthy cause is? Who pays the price for the previous generations harm?

While tackling all of these things, it also manages to be one of the most realistic representation of queer women I've ever read. Horny, angry, selfish, proud, and sometimes incredibly stupid. This series also has some of the HOTTEST sex scenes I've read; so clearly written by a queer woman, featuring things that are hot to WLW and not just stand-ins for straight sex. It's also a rare case of lesbians throughout the novel, not just in the one romance plotline. It's also the rare case of the lesbians getting explicit sex scenes rather than gentle implied PG hookups, while still being a plot-driven series.

If you're on the fence about reading through the sometimes incredibly stupid actions of our main characters amidst complex political turmoil - invest in this series because there is in fact a GORGEOUS three-way in the third book that develops the plot.

It's an incredible series that is full of hateable characters that are written so well that you're forced to empathise with them, even if you're screaming at them the whole time you're reading. Incredible piece of sapphic fantasy.