This was a really satisfying end to what was effectively a second Sevenwaters trilogy about Sean and Aisling’s daughters. The focus on Maeve here ties this into the original trilogy well, and the focus on the Tuatha De does a great job of tying the bits of the Lady of the Forest from the first and third books into the Fair Folk politics hinted at in book four. The scope isn’t quite as epic as the trajectory of the first trilogy (for either the generational trauma or the centuries-long scope implied by the battle over/focus on the islands), but the focus on the Fair Folk and conclusion of the threads initiated in book four mean Flame of Sevenwaters does a really good job of recapturing the bigger-than-itself feeling of the original trilogy.

Maeve is a satisfying protagonist for a lot of the same reasons as Sorcha and Liadan (extremely sure of who she is, even when she’s not sure if she’s doing the right thing), while guaranteeing through sheer prickliness that she’s not exactly like either of them. Her disability is obviously a big part of this book’s narrative, and I was relieved to see it handled consistently well throughout the book. It’s not trivialized, instantly solved through magic, or overemphasized to the point of infantilization. (I will say I was kind of hoping she’d actually end up in a relationship with Rhian; there’s generally a severe paucity of queer characters in Sevenwaters, to a point that it feels like erasure, and this would’ve been a nice place for friends to lovers.)

It’s also nice to see some conclusions for Cathal and Ciaran, and this book felt like it did a really good job of allowing Ciaran to come into his own as a major background character with some real agency and a sense of belonging to the Sevenwaters family finally.