Thank you to NetGalley and to Orbit Books for the digital ARC, it has not affected my honest review.

TW: grief, death, violence, war, murder, body horror, references to genocide, torture

Following on six months from the end of ‘The Stars Undying’, ‘The Sea Eternal’ is the epic end to the duology that follows Cleopatra, Caesar and a female Marc Antony in a retelling set in space with a god whispering in Cleopatra’s ear the whole time. Matheus Ceirran, the commander and leader of the dominating Empire of Ceiao, is dead. Hunting down his assassins is his loyal captain Anita, but she’s distracted- sharing the bed of the Oracle and Queen of Szayet, Altagracia Caviro Patramata, formerly the lover of Matheus. Mourning deeply, Anita is drawn to the very edges of civilization as she tracks his killers and there she discovers another empire, one that has its own secrets to hide. Uncovering a deadly secret that could upend the entire galaxy, Anita clashes with Ceirran’s heir, Otávio Julhan, once a mere child and now the future of the Ceian Empire, who has grown even more powerful since Anita has been away. Caught between her loyalty to Matheus’ memory, the so-called god whispering in Gracia’s ear at all times and her role at home, Anita is pulled into a deadly war that threatens to collapse everything she loves and holds dear.

Anita was my favourite character of the first book so I was delighted that we got her perspective in this one. She’s been completely ruined by the loss of Mathieus and every since then her only priority has been eradicating his killers and ignoring her problems. She’s a brilliant character- contradictory, brave and heartbreakingly human underneath the humour and intense focus of her revenge. Her relationship with Gracia broke my heart a little, they clashed a lot in the first book though the flirtation was there- their connection is real but the circumstances are terrible. I loved the addition of Otávio Julhan, who in real history would go on to be the Emperor Augustus, and the way he clashes with Anita. I felt genuinely afraid for Anita as her excesses with Gracia and her destructive behaviour led her into great risk and the possibility of deep unpopularity back home. The world building and scale of this duology is enormous, it spans an entire empire and it gets even larger in this final book as Anita pushes the limits of the Ceian Empire. This is a gorgeous and devastating reimagining of Roman and Egyptian history and considering what happened to Matheus in the first one, you spend the entire book afraid for Anita and Gracia. I really admire Emery Robin’s writing for weaving history, politics, romance and science fiction together so seamlessly, especially because there’s so many significant moments where things click together. I’m so glad I reread book 1 before this one because it made me appreciate the depths of grief and fury Anita reaches so much. I’ll definitely go back to these books in the future, this was a super satisfying, devastating ending to the series.

Ever since reading The Stars Undying, I've had a relatively niche craving for Shakespeare retellings set in space, so it was with great excitement that I got my hands on this one. As with the first book (which I reread in preparation), this was an incredibly immersive world to dive into, populated by characters who I loved from the very first page. There are a few new ones in this book, which made it all the more exciting to read. In fact, I think this book did very well at keeping the stakes feeling high throughout. Almost inevitably, I had some familiarity with the source text on which it's based (and more now, since I read both plays), so I knew how it would turn out in the end. Yet, it's very carefully balanced so as not to really give a clue that it was heading that way (which is not to say that the end came as a surprise, just that I had somehow managed to forget that's what was going to happen). This duology has definitely cemented Emery Robin as one to watch for me.