Book 3 of the Raksura novels would not have been able to hit its emotional notes so perfectly without the grounding of the first 2 books. Everything that main character Moon learns about his people only serves to increase his self-doubt; being Moon, he hides it under reticence and panicked aggression. All the things I loved from the first two books came back super extra in the third: utterly fantastic alien morphologies, creepy attacks from the psychotic Fell, super tense Raksura politics, terrifyingly fierce Raksura matriarchs, everyone’s favorite no-nonsense grumpy Raksura grandpa, and of course Moon, the emo taloned beast who would rather pick fights than talk about his feelings. The last paragraph of the novel completely stuck the landing for the entire trilogy. Masterfully done.