Lucha of the Forgotten Spring was a lovely end to the Lucha Moya duology, with themes of community care & responsibility, addiction, environmental respect & destruction, faith, leadership, and trust.

Lucha returns to her hometown after the most intense battle of her life. She has to learn to lead and rebuild, while making sure that the deadly drug she sought to destroy never haunts her community again. But the forest isn’t at peace quite yet, and the villagers of Robado face new dangers.

I continued to enjoy the thoughtful conversations around community and leadership. Lucha learns when to take charge and when to lean back - and everyone has to learn to communicate effectively and work together to build a better home. There are battling leadership styles at play and a whole lot of different motives, and it was interesting to see how different personalities meshed and fought for personal and communal interests. 

Everything here was richer and deeper. Just a really great expansion on book one! The pacing was a little funky (some big scenes FLEW by while we lingering in some quieter conversations for a while), but I was engaged the whole way through. 

I’m not one to care for a love triangle, but I thought both potential love interests were believable and the plot didn’t lean too heavily on any fighting between them. They were both just part of Lucha’s journey to forge a better world and future for herself and her loved ones.

I missed Lucha’s sister Lis in this one, though! Sisterhood was such a large part of book one and their relationship really resonated with me, so that was an aspect I was sad fell away here.

The ending was satisfying, but not TOO neat. There’s a lot left open and so many ways these stories could end.

Overall, I think that if you had a good time with book one then you’ll be very happy with this conclusion!

CW: death (child/parent), drug use, addiction, violence, confinement, body horror, grief, animal death, classism, fire

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(I received a free copy of this book; this is my honest review.)