The Her Instruments Series
/ posted in: General
Earthrise by M.C.A. Hogarth, Julie Dillon on June 5th 2013
Pages: 422
Genres: Fantasy & Magic, Fiction, Science
Published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Format: eBook
Source: Library, Owned
Reese Eddings has enough to do just keeping her rattletrap merchant vessel, the TMS Earthrise, profitable enough to pay food for herself and her micro-crew. So when a mysterious benefactor from her past shows up demanding she rescue a man from slavers, her first reaction is to say "NO!" And then to remember that she sort of promised to repay the loan. But she doesn't remember signing up to tangle with pirates and slavers over a space elf prince...
I love the universe that M.C.A. Hogarth has created for her books. In the future, humans create human/animal hybrids called the Pelted who then leave the galaxy. They spread out onto new worlds and form an Alliance. They totally leave their human creators behind.
Human still live in this galaxy except for a few adventurous ones who venture out into Alliance space. Reese was born on Mars. Now she has fled from the life that was planned for her there and is trying to make a living as a trader. It isn’t going well. She was bailed out once. She’s almost broke again.
Now she has to go rescue an Eldritch who fell into the hands of slavers. The Eldritch are a reclusive race. They don’t leave their planets much because they are highly empathetic. Too many beings makes it hard for them. Everything Reese knows about them comes from the romance novels she gets monthly that feature Eldritch as mysterious heroes. It turns out that Eldritch are much more annoying than in the books.
Reese is prickly. She doesn’t open herself up emotionally easily. This is an area of conflict between her and the feline crew members who respond to everyone emotionally and sexually. As a Mars native who was born under a dome and who now lives on a ship, she gets agoraphobia whenever she has to be on a planet with an endless horizon.
If you liked the interactions of the crew in The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet you might like this book too.
I liked it so much that I read the rest of the books in the series too.
Rose Point by M.C.A. Hogarth on October 7, 2013
Reese is only just getting used to running the Earthrise in the black—and with an Eldritch in her crew—when a trip to a colony world gives rise to a whole new problem: Hirianthial is showing powers that even the Eldritch rarely have, and that only in legend. He badly needs training, support and advice, and the only place he can find them is... at home.
To see the world of the Eldritch is a once in a lifetime opportunity, a thing of fantasies and rumor. And to finally meet the Eldritch Queen, the author of so many of Reese's windfalls! You'd have to twist her arm to get her to admit it, but Reese can't wait to go. But a court out of fantasy and a breathtaking land aren't enough compensation when they come packaged with a rabidly xenophobic species whose world is falling apart. The last thing they want any part of is some mortal interloper.
Is Reese ready for the Eldritch world? Better to ask: are they ready for her?
Not going to lie. I didn’t expect a space opera series to end up focusing so much on horses. I’m not complaining. I like horses.
After trying to open up a new trade route, Reese and the crew fall into the hands of slavers again. Hirianthial, the Eldritch crew member fights back. He realizes that his psychic powers are getting more powerful. In fact, the only person he’s ever heard of with these powers went insane and killed a lot of people on the Eldritch planet.
The Eldritch have kept the planet closed off forever. Bringing a crew of non-Eldritch in is going to be a problem.
The slow romance between Reese and Hirianthial continues. I enjoyed the idea of Reese trying to build a relationship based on what she read in romance books. She gets a bit annoyed when he doesn’t act like the heroes she reads about.
This is a very different book than the first one. There are a lot more politics than space travel. I love the diverse crew, especially Alacazam. He’s an alien that looks like a fuzzy basketball. He communicates through thoughts and helps cheer everyone else.
Warning – there is an attempted rape scene
Laisrathera (Her Instruments, #3) by M.C.A. Hogarth on May 12th 2014
Pages: 343
Published by Studio MCAH
The Queen of the Eldritch has offered Reese Eddings a life out of a fairy tale, one beyond the imagination of a poor girl from Mars who’d expected to spend her life eking out a living with a rattletrap merchant vessel. Unfortunately, the day Reese reached out to accept Liolesa’s offer, Hirianthial’s enemies betrayed him--and his entire planet--to a race of sociopathic shapeshifters with dreams of conquest. Now the only thing between Reese and a castle of her very own is a maniacal alien despot, his native quisling and all the Eldritch dead-set on preventing the incursion of aliens at any cost, including the ousting of their current usurper, who happens to be an alien himself...
Reese, Hirianthial and the crew of the Earthrise have been battling these pirates since Hirianthial’s capture inspired their fateful meeting, but to beat them Reese will have to own the power she’s always denied herself, and Hirianthial must make peace with his bloody past and uncertain future.
Right as everything is coming together for Reese and her crew, a coup throws the planet into chaos. Now Reese is hiding refugees and political prisoners. Hirianthial is off planet with the deposed Queen getting medical treatment for his injuries he got during the attack. The only way back together is to get the rightful Queen back on the throne.
This book is about making a new civilization from the remains of an old one. How do they want to live? What does it take to rule? Liolesa, the deposed queen has been shoring up her people with off-World goods for years without their knowledge. What happens when the isolationists who take over have to face the truth?
There is the repeated rape of a female prisoner in this story. It happens off the page but it isn’t graphically described. However, her reactions to this repeated trauma are described.
This is a good ending to the story. There is a short story that takes place between books two and three that I haven’t read yet. This author has other series set in the same universe to that I’m looking forward to reading.
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
- Backlist Books
- POC authors