I received this book in exchange for an honest review from Orbit.

Tiamat's Wrath is the long-awaited for eight book in James SA Corey's The Expanse series, which follows a range of different characters in a space system that has been colonised by humans. The emergence of a protomolecule that can destroy humanity in seconds tears planets apart and eventually bring them together as they attempt to fight an alien technology far beyond anyone's understanding.

Tiamat's Wrath was, like its predecessors full of action-packed drama and high stake schemes that honestly left me breathing fast with anxiety for all of my favourite characters. This book for some reason, more than the others, helped me understand some of the characters we've been following since the start better than ever before. For the first time, I really understood how sensitive Alex was, and how much he above the others seemed to hold on to the idea of a normal family life (with his failed attempt at normal with Giselle and Kit), and how much he was affected by what the others were doing and his family's life being in danger pretty much all the time. I appreciated Holden's chapters a lot in this book (possibly because there were fewer of them than normal) and I really liked seeing wholesome Holden be a little bit more scheme-y and manipulative than ever before - he definitely learned valuable life lessons from Avasarala.

I really liked the amount of scenes we received on Laconia, and the inner workings of the government (cough, dictatorship, cough) and how everything could fall apart in an instant. Teresa as a character was a great choice to follow, and the way she thinking - more so the evolving way of her thinking and how she began to see the truth of those around her - was rather fascinating to watch, and even though I didn't really like her, I rooted for her. Muskrat was also a fantastic addition, and I would like LOTS of her in the next book. I think I would have liked more about the start of the friendship between Teresa and Timothy (who, the moment he called her Tiny I was delighted to realise was Amos), and how she learned to trust him but also keep him a bit secret.

The scenes with the time disappearance, and the destruction of the Falcon, and Medina Station, honestly left me a bit shocked and speechless. It's hard to imagine anything that in a blink of eye can wipe so much life away as if it never existed, There have been times reading some of the books in this series, I wonder how there's anyone left when everyone can really just be obliterated just like that. It's honestly, terrifying.

I loved seeing Naomi become Captain officially - it's about time she realised she was the real leader of the group, and I can't even talk about Bobbie yet, it's still painful. I have been waiting for it to happen, and I really wanted her to go out in a blaze of glory if it was the way she was to exit, and by god she did.

The prologue was particularity good this time round, and I enjoyed the conversation between Amos and Holden. Not only am I very intrigued to see the new and improved Amos and how the repair drones changed him, truly, I also love the massive forewarning on what's to come in the next book. Major chaos. I'm SO ready for it.

Basically, the main takeaway from this book and all the rest of them, is don't mess with alien shit. Lock it up, leave it be.