The Bone Shard War (The Drowning Empire)

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There is a finesse in Lin's negotiation, in knowing how to approach and talk to powerful men and reign in her anger and using her other assets instead of threatening everyone with her bone shard magic or Alanga powers the way her father did. Bare bones: Two years after the battle on Gaelung island where Nisong and her army of constructs failed to take over Phoenix empire, we find our protagonists in worst positions than they were when we've last seen them. It starts with a time skip, and similar to Locklands by Robert Jackson Bennett, which did the same thing in the final book of The Founders trilogy, I expect the time skip here will have a mixed reception from readers. I’ve roughly read 100ish pages from the last update and I do feel like things are starting to happen and I’m remembering a lot more.

Lin realising being the best Emperor for her people may mean something different than what she envisioned. The first book in this series is one of my favourite fantasy debuts so I’ve been dying to see how this trilogy would wrap up. I’m with you though, I was crying so much by the end, that he’d come back to Lin again, like he’ll always keep coming back to her. If there's one thing I could add, I wished the characters would spend more time on each island before they move from one island to another so quickly, but that's more likely my preference speaking because I'm an avid fan of One Piece.All this talk of stories and history, and they were repeating it –actors on a stage putting on a slightly different rendition of the same play, night after night. There was a great potential there, some of it reflected in her intriguing relationship with Lin's father, and I just felt that wrapping her arc the way it did was a missed opportunity. I’m a bit sad to see the series come to an end, but I can’t wait to see what else Andrea Stewart comes out with next. Beth: I hadn’t really considered that, I guess that is a kindness… but then those years are a part of him, good or bad, so he’s still lost an important part of himself, and I find that notion quite scary?

The protagonists are just sailing from place to place, running into a villain, trying to talk it out with them, and then exchanging a few blows. The magic system Stewart creates and the worldbuilding surrounding it are what make this series as good as it is. Mostly everything wrapped up with this set of characters but lots of room left in the world Stewart created for other stories.Publishers really need to start including mini summaries of the key points of the previous novels in fantasy series.