And the conclusion of the Stone Moon trilogy. (Look! I was good and saved posting it here for today.) Another read for OuaT7 too.

Have more probably incoherent squeefesting.

tl;dr version #1: ZOMG! SO AWESOME! EVERYONE GO GET COPIES OF THESE BOOKS RIGHT NOW.

tl;dr version #2: I loved these books. So much. ‘Bloom’ is all kinds of quiet awesome and answers so many questions and ties everything so strongly together and then adds new things. <3 ‘Bloom’ made me so happy when I finished it. (Sad to leave, but mostly overjoyed at everything. Well, almost everything.)

A Bloom in the North by M.C.A. Hogarth

‘Bloom’ is not filled with as many surprise!twists as ‘Pearl’ was, and this is a good thing. It’s still filled with twisty, plotty awesome, but they’re often twists and turns that you can see coming and that make you jump up and shout “I KNEW IT!” at your book and do a little happy-dance of squee while holding it. Uhm… Weird analogy, bear with me.

‘Pearl’ is like when you’re a child trying to sleep ever though there are monsters under the bed waiting for when the light goes out before they attack you in your sleep. ‘Bloom’ is like the blankie your parents give you to calm your dreams at night. Ish. I did tell you to bear with me. ^-~ (Yeah, sensible analogies? Not my strong point.)

But… yes. ‘Bloom’ is a lot… quieter than ‘Pearl’ was. It was a treat to read them so close together, even though I think it /is/ possible to read this as a stand-alone. (There would be spoilers for both previous books, but, I think, not the kind that ruin those books, more the kind that intrigue. Like a really, /really/ long back-cover text.)

And it answers oh so many questions about Ke Bakil and the Jokka. I was hoping we’d learn more about those answers, but the way Hogarth delivered on those answers, the light it sheds on every single one of the stories before ‘Bloom’… I was thrilled. And LINGUISTIC SHIFTS, people! Oh my love for that. <3<3<3<3

I loved the fact that the trilogy ends with Thenet’s narration. When I noticed that there were narrators listed at the top of each part, I admit that I cheated and looked up who the narrators were and I wasn’t sure how it was going to work, but oh the sense it makes.

It’s been a long, a very long, time since I read a series of books that made me so happy. And these books did. Right now, I can’t even be sad that there are no more new-to-me stories featuring jokka (that I know of) because that ending just made me way, way too happy to do anything other than squee. I loved Pathen. I loved seeing patterns from the short stories return. I loved the relationships between the characters. And Darsi and Hesa and OMG! Abadil! <3 And seeing everyone from ‘Pearl’ again and some of the people from ‘Shell’ and het Narel and all the twisty-turny goodness and the spies and. Just. The camaraderie, the effect Pathen has on people. And Roika. Oh, Roika. So complicated Roika. I cried. (Well, a little because I was mostly overwhelmed by everything else. And also distracted by the linguistics going on at the time.)

You don’t get shiny pretties today, no. Another read for Once upon a Time 7. M.C.A. Hogarth had already shot up to my ‘favourite author, buy everything’ list earlier this year (hence the frequency of ramblings about her work), but with ‘Pearl’ she pretty much blew up everything I thought I’d figured out about my favourites. O_O

The Worth of a Shell was amazing. Pearl in the Void and A Bloom in the North are, hands-down, two of the most fantastic books I have ever read. They’re so good they leave every single one of my establish favourite must-read authors behind in the dust.

Hence why I’m sharing these now instead of trying to build up a bit more author diversity before I do. (I will resume that attempt after all the stories about the jokkad are up because I’ve already scheduled those for posting. These… are just way too good not to share.)

So! With that in mind: have rambling.

Pearl in the Void by M.C.A. Hogarth

I was going to say intelligent things about this book. I promise I was. But then I actually read it and any and all intelligent things went away and I want to put this books in the hands of bloggers and reviewers who are /really/ good at saying intelligent things because there is /so much/ to be said about everything, about the relationship between the sexes, jokkad spirituality, divination, morality, society, history, how history is shaped, storytelling, friendship, loyalty, fate, LOVE… I’m probably missing scads, but it is ALL there. And it is awesome and glorious and I squeed from the very first sentence and I went (with joy) and I feared and I was swept away by the story and kept guessing and second-guessing and getting it wrong. (O_O I know I’m not nearly as intelligent as some, but it’s actually reasonably rare for stories to blind-side me so utterly as this did.)

I loved it and I hearted it and I wanted to hug Keshul so, so much and I am scared of Roika, partially because he makes /so much sense/ it is utterly terrifying and I shudder to think what would become of Ke Bakil if Keshul had actually liked him. It was fantastic to see more of the Stone Moon empire and I loved Keshul because he is awesome and I keep saying that about all the Jokkad narrators, it feels like, but. Well, you’ll understand when you’ve read a fair amount of them.

And reading this, learning more about their history… (Fascinating, wondrous things they are.) It makes me want to reread all the shorts again because I have a far stronger framework. I spent so much time thinking back on what I’d read and tracing out what led them to this point because, make no mistake, a /lot/ of what you read in the short stories has bearing on this book. I mean, you don’t have to read them and I think I might advise reading them afterwards, but whichever order you choose will add oh so much depth to them and I’m so glad I found these NOW because I only had to wait a little while for the whole trilogy. It’s been oh so long since I’ve fallen so hard for a book.

I want to get everyone all the copies. *in so much book love*