Seven Mercies is the sequel to Seven Devils, and continues the story of the rebellion led by the former heir to the Tholosian Empire. In the Empire, the Archon controls the populace by means of the Oracle, a powerful AI.

The Devils are on the run. Most of their forces have abandoned them, and they have no allies. One of them will be dead soon without a cure for the ichor. The One wants her programmer back, and is willing to enslave all of humanity to make it happen. The odds couldn't be more stacked against them, until a bit of intel from the most unlikely of potential allies gives them one last shot for the freedom of the galaxy. The stakes are high, and Eris, former heir to the throne, knows that she will have to pay her god in more deaths before they are done.

The relationships between the characters grow stronger, but there are still times when they don't act as a cohesive unit, and members pursue their own agendas. We learn the backstories for several of them, and those stories serve to further illustrate how despotic the Empire is.

The book clocks in at 464 pages, and at times, it feels like it. Each of the characters, with the exception of Kyla, has a fully fleshed-out story arc/tangent, and there's a lot of exposition. It's good exposition, but this is not a quick or easy read.

Lam and May have done a great job of tying up all the loose ends and have given a satisfactory, if somewhat formulaic, ending to the duology.

4/5 stars

I received an advance copy from DAW and NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. This, and other reviews, may be found on Goodreads and my blog, https://redhatcatreviews.com/.

This was good both as a book and a sequel/conclusion. I don't think I liked it quite as much as Seven Devils, but it was still pretty great.

Rolling with the punches dealt in the nail-biting denouement of Seven Devils, we rejoin our space-faring stabby/shooty disaster squad in Seven Mercies as they're sent their separate ways on desperate missions - and then thrust back together to take a definitive stand against the tyrannical rogue AI that is this sequel's primary antagonist (though Damocles proves to still be an authentic piece of work and thorn in everyone's side, moments of dubious sympathy aside). Driven by their dogged refusal to surrender to the soul-strangling rule of the Oracle that has displaced the Archon dynasty, the rebels remain determined to sacrifice what they must for the prospect of astronomical peace and safety as they race against slim odds and damning obstacles, and I think it's safe to say that Seven Mercies wraps up its many plotlines and somewhat staggering plethora of perspectives with diplomatic polish and a solid sense of storytelling direction.

There are many aspects of a world of its scale (and the stakes of its plot) that the Seven Devils duology does really well: the diversity of its star players (I'm personally grateful for the specific diversity of pronouns), the spiderweb of relationships that tethers our medley of protagonists together (between sibling rivalries, mimicked parenthood, platonic bonds and romantic duos), the rough road to recovery from different degrees of physical and psychological trauma, and the many-sided die of dehumanization policies (the moral dangers of treating people like mere statistics, deplorably programming their thoughts and actions down to a T and then robbing them more directly of any semblance of free will...and then some), for starters. As far as the main dramatis personae go, Kyla and Cato deserve a special mention because - besides Ariadne and Eris and Nyx, who stole the show in the previous book for me - their POVs and backstories were the ones that won me over the most this time around.

All that said and done, the way things turned out in the story's resolution - rocket-paced, action-packed and poignant as it was - was the perfect mix of satisfyingly righteous and mournfully tender to me, and as a reader that's all I'd dare ask for.

Thank you to NetGalley and DAW for kindly passing on this ARC! 💫

I really enjoyed Seven Devils and the end was a semi cliffhanger so I'm eager to see what follows next.This is very feminist Star Wars vibe and had great plot development, rep, and relationship throughout.