A Sea of Stars

I'd been waiting for this book for what felt like several lifetimes, but in actuality was
only 5 years. Still, to a 12-year old bemoaning that Conn wasn't "Conn" and screeching about another book to a 17-year old staying up all night to finish this book when she should have been writing school assignments is pretty impressive.

It having been 5 years since I read the third book, I cannot quite recall whether or not Conn had his memories back or we merely were guessing he'd get them back or what. All I remember is that I needed another book. My guess is that there is a fairly significant time jump between Found and Home, as Conn is completely himself once again and Nevery mentions how they "got him back". I would have liked to have seen that incident and aftershock, but oh well.

But once I got past the above factor, I fell right back into the story and the setting, squeeing in delight with every mention of Heartsease. One thing I love, and I think perhaps I only really noticed it with this book, is that I can so easily imagine Wellmet. It's actually one of the few series where I can envision nearly every location. Perhaps the locations don't have very imaginative names, but they serve their purpose.

I love these characters and their relationships so much. Everyone was wonderful and as I remembered, except I could have done with an 800-page book where everyone played a much bigger role. It also must be said that Nevery is a plush grumpy owl and Benet is a fierce teddy bear and they will forever be my absolute favorites. As far as romantic relationships go, I don't know if I could be more onboard with Benet and Kerrn (who I would love a short story about, Benet trying to teach Kerrn how to knit or bake and Kerrn just being frazzled and flustered and not getting it at all and then she
doesn't burn a batch of biscuits or drop a stitch and gets super excited and...yeah, anyways) or Embre and Rowan (who would pretty much just stare at each other, alternating between flirting politically and blushing).

Reading it as a more experienced reader than I was with the first three, I was a bit more picky concerning the prose and wasn't a huge fan of the many compound word-phrases, such as dim-dark, swept-stepped, etc. (Those were actually some of my favorite ones, so I don't know why I'm quoting them...) Occasionally even the first person narration could be written a bit strangely, but not so much as to annoy me.

I will say that even though I think I would still love these books if I read them for the first time now, as opposed to when I was 10-12 years old, but I don't think I would love them so much if they didn't hold a good amount of the nostalgia factor.