4.5⭐️

What an amazing conclusion to an amazing trilogy! The world building is some of the best I’ve found, with super unique magic and tons of relevant technological advancement themes centered around evolving civilization. I loved getting to dive back into this world, but finishing this book was bittersweet.

This book read a little differently than the first two, partly because it takes place eight years after the events of the second. I loved that we saw Crasedes, who is very much a morally gray character, team up with our favorite duo to save the world. I also loved getting more back story with both Clef and Crasedes, as well as the history.

The ending was realistic, but a little unique, almost a bit sad, even though it’s still technically a HEA.

Overall, this was my least favorite in the trilogy, but as a whole it’s an AMAZING adult fantasy trilogy.

Read if you love:

🗝️Amazing world building (like, the coolest!)
🗝️The coolest magic system I’ve seen (scrived technology)
🗝️A thief who teams up with a nerdy scriver
🗝️Sapphic romance
🗝️Merchant house wars
🗝️Political intrigue
🗝️Tons of action

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me free access to the digital advanced copy of this book.

I am a huge fan of The Founders Trilogy. Or at least, I'm a huge fan of Foundryside and Shorefall, the first two books in the trilogy. I felt that this third book was a departure from these predecessors, which were essentially heist stories. While this book began with action and pretty much never let up, it did not hold my interest. I felt like the narrative bogged down in technical aspects of the world-building. I remain a fan of Robert Jackson Bennett and look forward to whatever he has in store for us next. 

[Thanks to Penguin Random House and NetGalley for an opportunity to read an advanced reader copy and share my opinion of this book.]

Another series down with an ending I enjoyed. "Locklands" caps off The Founders Trilogy by Robert Jackson Bennett with a answers to some questions and an insane escalation in scope.

We jump a bit into the future after Shorefall Night and Sancia, Clef, and Bernice are leading a conflict against these insane powers. Utilizing the mind twinning from the last book they are able to rapidly coordinate and are using that as the keystone of their resistance. When an operation yields intelligence on the enemy moving on something that could reset reality they have to make a crazy gamble and go deep behind enemy lines. Learning more truths as Clef remembers, for good or I'll.

Narrated by Tara Sands, closed it out with a bang and hit those emotional moments perfectly.

Reasons to read:
-The society that is built up using the twinning is so fascinating
-Action hits whole new levels for the series
-ANSWERS
-Threat is so real it's a good motivation to take crazy gambles
-Ends well

Cons:
-Sort of has the same issue that Star Wars has, one family kinda messes up everyone's day

I’m sad that’s it’s over, but has been a wild fun ride!
This starts off 8 years after the end of book 2. Bold choice! Leaves a lot of mystery to finding out Tevanne has turned into a hive mind weapon, but the Foundryside team is also experimenting with hive mind as well to hopefully take town Tevanne. The thing is the magic system in this series gets bigger and bigger with every new book and it can feel a bit overwhelming at times.

Oh man... this was kind of a disappointment. I absolutely LOVED the first two books in this series, so I was super excited for this conclusion. Instead... this had almost none of what made me fall in love with the first two books: a bit of humor, found family trope that doesn't feel forced, and a balanced cast of characters. I know WHY the found family trope that I want can't be a part of this book, but I really felt it's absence. Whereas the last two books felt both plot AND character driven, this felt like 99% plot, which was overwhelming and boring at times.

As someone who rooted for Sancia and Berenice for two books and was so excited to have more interaction with them, this book didn't give me as much romance as I hoped for. However, it did show them as an "old married couple" (in more ways than one), and I did enjoy seeing how comfortable they were with each other.

This is the major spoilery bit, so look away if you don't want that!!

Gregor. Deserved. MORE! The big ending felt so anticlimactic with him coming back. Did no one care? He'd been trapped in his own body for 8 years and it feels like that was just swept under the rug.

AND THE EPILOGUE?? WHAT WAS THAT?? You mean to tell me in that time that no one found out a way to bring Berenice back to the hive mind so she just had to be an outcast? I get what RJB was going for but it just made me mad, to be honest.

Still not the worst ending I've ever seen/read, but definitely wish it had been different.

Great ending to the trilogy! Since this is the last book in a series I don’t want to give too much away. I think we really see character growth throughout the series and I like the balance of an interesting plot with lots of politics and world building with learning about the characters.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this arc.

I really enjoyed the first two books, but this one didn’t quite reach their standard. Maybe it was the time gap that threw me off. While they were the same characters, they weren’t technically the same. If that makes sense. Overall, it wasn’t bad. It ended alright.

This was a great story and wrapped up the series well. I thoroughly enjoyed the characters, the setting, the magic/science.

I enjoyed this book! It wasn’t my favorite from the trilogy but still a very solid book and a fitting end to the trilogy. This book picks up a few years after the events of the previous book and a few things have changed for our core group of characters. This book had a whole lot of action and excitement and there were times that I wondered if Sancia, Berenice, and Clef would ever catch a break. There are some surprising moments and we do learn more about the past. I love this world that Robert Jackson Bennet has created and found it fun to escape for a bit with this entertaining trilogy. I listened to the audiobook and thought that Tara Sands did a fantastic job with all of the character voices and added to my overall enjoyment of the story with her narration.

I received a digital review copy of this book from Del Rey and purchased a copy of the audiobook.

SO happy I got to ready this early on. I am a Bennet fan girl and will continue to advertise these books to my friends and their kids. I think this book brings me back to the same vibes I had from the red pyramid and that entire series. Would rec.

Robert Jackson Bennett may not be as prolific as some authors, but his writing is outstanding and worth the wait. Locklands is the last in his Founders trilogy, and boy, is it a doozy. It truly is a culmination of each previous book in that our heroes now fight on enemy turf instead of their own. We finally get the answers to Clef's origins and the identity of the Hierophant. While that will not mean anything to anyone unfamiliar with the first two books, trust me when I say these are big reveals worthy of an ending. Told with the same care and wit as The Divine Cities trilogy, Locklands is clever, fascinating in its intricacies, and so well-written as to make the most complex situations easy to imagine. I will gladly read anything Mr. Bennett writes in the future.

Updated review. This series is unique and I loved book 1. However I think it should have been a standalone. Upon further reflection, the whole trilogy just did not work for me. I was not invested enough. This author however remains a genius of first books. As I enjoyed the first book in his other series too.

Such a moving conclusion to a genius series. This book brought the same well thought-out system of how everything worked, but added even more twists and moments that were heart wrenching to the characters.

Thank you Ballatine and NetGalley for a copy of this e-Arc. This is a very satisfying ending to the three book series. I enjoyed the first two books more as they were confined to a single City. This one expands beyond after Shorefall and the timeline skips ahead. More and more is learned about the world and I am sorry to see it go. To me, this series was a very unique work.

The final book in this fascinating world. We finally get to see where Clef comes from and his whole story. This is very different from the first two since we aren't in a heist so the tension at the beginning isn't as tight. It starts off years after the events of book two and things have and haven't calmed down. They've been working to find a way around the problem of our main antagonist. I loved seeing these characters grow. I will say I was a bot disappointed with how little we.spend in Stacia's point of view. We started with her and thought we would also end with her.

When I first tried to read Locklands, I had difficulty getting through it. Not from a lack of wanting to read it, I wanted to see where Berenice, Sanica, and the rest of the gang ended up after the events of Shorefall. I ended up DNF’ing at around 30% because I couldn’t wrap my head around some of the events that had happened or were happening in Locklands. I picked it back up because it was one of three books I had DNF’d this year, and I didn’t want to end the year on that note. While I struggled to read through the first 30% of the book, the book smoothed out and became enjoyable.

Locklands is book 3 in The Founders Trilogy. This book is not standalone; you must read the first two books before picking this up. The author goes into what happened in the first books but not in depth. I had a hard time following this book at first.

Locklands takes place around eight years after the events of Shorefall. A lot has happened in those eight years, but the most notable is that people used scriving to connect. Born out of the scriving are conscious entities called The Cadences. They are helping Berenice and her people fight a war against Tevanne. But they are slowly losing the war. Berenice realizes that the one person (or being, if you want to be technical) who could help them is being held captive and tortured by Tevanne. He is Crasedes Magnus, the hierophant and son of Clef. But can or will he help? Or will everything that they are fighting for be in vain?

I wasn’t a big fan of Berenice when the book first started. She came across as dull. As the book continued, I understood that she was anything but that. She was brave and willing to do anything to ensure her people were safe and get the job done. By the end of the book, I loved her. Her sacrifices did help her people in the future.

Clef had a considerable part in this book. A good chunk of the last part of the book is based on his human memories. He was still the sarcastic, wise-ass key he always was, but it was tempered by what he remembered. My heart broke for him during specific memories, but I also got very angry with him. It was his actions that made Crasedes who he was.

Crasedes didn’t show up until after Berenice rescued him. He was different from the egotistical man that the author featured in Shorefall. What he experienced in Tevanne changed him. It changed him so much that he was willing to work with Clef and Berenice to nullify Tevanne. Of course, he did have some tricks up his sleeve, but for the most part, he was pretty straightforward with what he wanted and was going to do.

Surprisingly, Sanica didn’t have a massive part in most of the book. With her physical changes, I could understand why she wasn’t out fighting on the front lines. But, towards the end, it was revealed what Sanica had to do and man, did she deliver!!

I loved the Cadences. Greeter and Design were my favorites. I loved reading about their interactions with Berenice and how they talked to her. They were also very instrumental in what happened at the end of the book.

The storyline with Clef and Crasedes (and ultimately Tevanne) broke my heart. As a parent, I could understand why Clef chose to do what he did. But as a person, I was horrified by it. Also, I will never be able to look at butterflies the same way. Again, the author revealed another sad thing.

The storyline with the war, Tevanne, Crasedes, the Cadences, Sanica, and Berenice, was well written. The author did a fantastic job of not only building up to the grand finale but explaining why it went the way it did.

The fantasy angle was one of the best ones I have ever read. The author perfectly outlined the use of scriving for pathing, the creations of the Cadences, and even Tevanne’s usage of magic/scriving. It sometimes frightened me, but it kept my attention wholly on the book.

There was a slight romance angle in Locklands. The relationship between Sanica and Berenice was relationship goals (seriously). They were utterly in love with each other, but they also understood that there was something bigger than themselves going on. So, yes, my heart broke when certain events happened.

The end of Lockalnds was interesting. I say interesting because I didn’t expect the book to end as it did. It surprised me.

I would recommend Locklands to anyone over 21. There is moderate to graphic violence, mild sexual situations, and language.

thank you to Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, Del Rey for providing an arc of this book on netgalley

for full transparency, i didn't realize this was the third in a series. ultimately, i liked it but was pretty confused for a while until i realized i was reading the finale.

seems like the series is good so i can't wait to go back and read the first two books!

What an ending to a series that is consistent from beginning to end. I would recommend re-reading or re-capping the ending of Shorefall cause the book itself does not provide much exposition to remind you what all has happened and you start this book after quite a substantial time skip. That said I really loved how this magic system was used this book and exploring the relationship between society and this technology/magic. That is probably my favorite part of the series and the thematic messaging that snuck up on me the most (he is very good at doing this to me with his series). The plot and characters themselves were fun but you will not get to spend a lot of quiet moments with them. This is the classic third book in a fantasy trilogy where we have to get things done and for that reason I understand why a lot of my friends don't find it to be their favorite in the trilogy. I think its a really solid addition though and a great way to wrap everything up. I also got lots of answers to my questions and honestly if a book gives me cool questions and satisfying answers I will generally have a great time.

I really hate it but this was a DNF for me. I loved the first book of this series and the wonderful characters so this was hard for me to do. Unfortunately the characters I loved are hardly there and the main character focus seemed to be on Berenice who I found to be very flat and boring compared to Sanchia, Clef and Gregor.