Lost Truth

Truth #4

by Dawn Cook

Alissa is steadily advancing in her magical studies with the last surviving Master at the legendary Hold. But she's haunted by dreams - dreams revealing that other Masters have survived...

Alissa's dreams lead her to a distant island, where she and a rescue party discover countless Masters, alive and part of a flourishing magical society. But instead of being welcomed, Alissa finds that she herself may need to be rescued. The Masters' leader, Keribdis, believes that she should be Alissa's teacher, whether Alissa likes it or not.
And when Alissa rebels, she endangers not only her magic but also her life...

Genres: Fantasy, Dragons, Romance, Young Adult, Magic, High Fantasy, Fiction

356 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published November 30, 2004

About the author

aka Kim Harrison

Dawn Cook was born on 1966 in Detroit, Michigan, USA. She grew up in the Midwest as the only girl in a family of boys, and is a self-proclaimed "former tomboy". She grew up reading science fiction and fairytales. She discovered her talent for writing at the age of 15, when she began writing down the stories that she conceived. Despite her love of writing, she took an unorthodox approach to writing, and claims to have avoided English courses beyond the basic requirements in high school and college. After she obtained a Degree in Sciences, she moved to she moved to South Carolina during ten years, but now she has moved back to her home state. She married and had two children. She began publishing after the birth of their kids. After the success of her novels, she was able to resign from her day job, devoting herself to writing full time. She continued publising novels as Kim Harrison. She is a member of the Romance Writers of America and Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

Reviews

[Jill Furedy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, we knew Keribdis would have to resurface eventually. After all of the father figures Alissa has encountered along the way, I was a little distressed that the only major female character turns out to be what amounts to the wicked stepmother. The other female characters that pop up throughout the books are never explored, (even Alissa's mother is hardly mentioned) and Silla is too much the fragile child to be interesting.
However, Keribdis is a strange 'bad guy' to me...clearly she earned Useless's love at some point, and occasionally they talk of her beauty as though that shows her good side. But sometimes it sounds as like she was always a controlling drama queen and so I'm not clear on why the others stood by here with only meager attempts to dissuade her. Are Masters really so easily controlled? Perhaps that also ties in the feral mind being forced into submission, though in that case I'd like to hear how Keribdis was able to gain such power with hers also supposedly suppressed.
At any rate, though I had issues with certain points, I still thought that this book wrapped things up rather nicely. While I didn't care for the other Masters on the island like I did the other characters in book 3, and so didn't care what happened to them, I did want to see how it played out for our main characters. I wanted a little better for Connen-Neute as I didn't fully understand the appeal of his relationship. Talon's story wasn't unexpected, but did throw in a nice twist at the end. I wanted Sati or Beast to somehow reappear to wrap up the ending of the love triangle, and didn't buy how Alissa did get to make a choice, but then still ended up with it basically decided for her anyway, and I don't think she would have allowed it to end as it did.
Nevertheless, I found myself mulling over all the ways identity and love collided throughout the book. Even excluding Alissa's familial relationships with Useless and Redal-Stan, more so than we see with her real parents, and her brotherly relationship with Connen-Neuete. We see so many different examples of how romantic love plays out, with Alissa and Beast and Strell and Lodesh, Sati and Lodesh (did letting go of love to prevent pain spare her anything? and why does Lodesh find anything positive in love after all his losses? how does love of his city compare to romantic love?), Useless and Keribdis (did she love at all? and how does Useless pick between love and protecting others?), Bailic and Alissa's parents (never clear on what happened between him and her mother, but is his ability to kill his only friend a breaking point or just a glimpse at how broken he already was?), Connen Neute devloping a romance (did he just lack confidence and need to find himself, or was it his raku nature to avoid relationships and his experiences with Alissa helped humanize him?) I don't know if the author was intentionally exploring love or if it just became a recurring theme, but that is one thing I was left with that gave the series more impact. So that's why I gave the final book a better review than the others...in the end I think it came together with more complexity than I had anticipated and made it one I'll have to reread with those questions in mind.

[Miss E · Rating 3 out of 5]

Love triangles RARELY work, and Dawn Cook was no exception. It was especially frustrating because of how unnecessary it was. Alissa's feeling were clear early on in the series, why introduce love drama in a way that one character (at the very least) will lose out terribly? Both Strell and Lodesh were extremely likable in their own ways, so that made it much worse. And I thought the ending was a cop out, a cowardly means of distracting the readership from how depressingly the love triangle was resolved.

The rest of the plot was interesting enough, but it was hard to ignore the triangle dilemma since it was such a major part of the story. This was the most disappointing book in the series for me.

[Erica · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is unusual for my favorite book of a series to also be the last book in the series. Usually the characters have grown a bit stale and predictable by the end. But Lost Truth, although following a classic adventure tale (sailing off into the horizon after a lost group of people), showcases Alissa’s rebellious personality very well. Plus we get resolutions to most of the questions posed by the first three books. And the way the author examined power dynamics in Talo-Toecan/Keribdis relationships was much more sophisticated than I would have expected something from the fantasy genre.

[Emiloxy (TheFunPolice) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cried at the end. I CRIED. I love this woman's characters SO MUCH.

[Karine Darnessy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Et oui, vous ne rêvez pas. j'ai enfin fini la série, fini la dernière relique de ma pal. Je ne suis plus coupable de laisser traîner plus de 5 ans un livre dans ma pile à lire.

Nous retrouvons donc Alissa, Strell et les autres à la forteresse. Alissa cache toujours la présence de Bestiale à Inutile. Mais par-dessus tout , depuis des mois, elle arrive à communiquer avec une autre jeune femme raku pendant son sommeil. Inutile en est sûr, c'est le signe que les autres maîtres sont encore en vie, quelque part.

Au départ, j'aurais cru cela plus difficile de reprendre la lecture de cette série après temps d'année de pause entre le troisième et le quatrième tome. Au final, ce ne fut pas le cas. J'ai même eu la surprise de savoir qui était qui sans problème. a la base, je trouvais que la série traînait en longueur et je m'ennuyais un peu. Là, c'est le contraire, la dynamique des évènements est plus poussé et les nombreux dialogues y sont pour quelque chose. l'histoire accélère fortement en deuxième partie sans qu'une impression de travail bâclé émerge. j'ai eu le plaisir de lire une fin propre.
Concernant l'intrigue, il n'y a pas de surprise, tout est dit dans le résumé. le personnage de Keribdis est ignoble et son sort m'a parut trop doux sur le moment, mais je me suis rendue compte qu'en faite c'était le pire sort pour un maître de finir dans l'état où elle est maintenant. la fin du dernier chapitre est amusante et donne une petite touche humoristique.

Pour conclure, j'ai bien aimé ce dernier tome qui donne de l'espoir et un avenir meilleur pour le monde d'Alissa. Un monde où certaines erreurs ne seront plus reproduites juste pour satisfaire un sursaut d'orgueil.

[Scarlet · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had a hard time convincing myself to read this book in the first place, the third book had left me so miserable I almost gave up on the series..perhaps I should have.
I just happen to love lodesh, I had braced myself for his death, but I was still devastated by the ending, I think he suffered enough and it's ridiculous to have him suffer for few more weeks!and despite the fact that what he did was very sweet, I think everyone had been hard on him, that it made me angry most of the time.
And lodesh was just part of it, I hated Alissa in this book more than I already hated her, she is so self centered, I don't even know why guys like her anyway,first she said she couldn't chose so as not to hurt the one she will dump, then she got upset that Lodesh didn't crash down and start crying when she made the decision! and then she decided to throw her life away without any regard to what strell might feel!
the plot was very week, there was so much consternation on the love triangle that the whole masters-colony thing was ruined, there were a lot of convenient solutions to problems and clinches that were very disappointing after the amazing time travailing plot of book 3.
there were also a number of inconsistencies, for example silla couldn't fly out of the island but she managed to go there somehow! Talo-tocan had no idea who silla's parents were but logic suggest she was born long before the masters left the hold! Strell claimed that Alissa's mother gave him the ribbon because she had hoped that he would meet her daughter, but if my memory serves me correctly, he had met Alissa's mother on his way to the plains, the other way from Alissa! then again he could have been making things up to get it to work out somehow.
I realize that giving the book a one star is a bit harsh, since I usually never give such a low rating, but the truth is, I've spent this morning crying my eyes out over lodesh and I have to vent my frustration somehow, but I guess in the end book 3 had been so much better that this one failed in comparison.

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this series. If you’ve read Kim Harrison’s Hollows series, this is like a prequel almost. It’s as if we are learning the story of how demons (dragons) started. I loved the plot twists though I admit some could be predicted.
My only negative thoughts of this book is that I don’t understand how any crowd of people could blindly accept leadership of the antagonist for so long. And I wish this series kept going, for while our author does an excellent job with closure, we still have to wonder-
Does the master population end up increasing over time like they hope?
Does Silla master her problem?
What does Alissa end up studying and changing in the world of masters?
What about the character we learn about in the last few pages?
Will the warden of the grove have success with the cuttings?
It’s hard to say goodbye to such a good series

[Micaela · Rating 5 out of 5]

I know some people hate love triangles, usually including me, usually because it is incredibly obvious who the girl (or guy) will choose because option number two is a douche. The Alissa-Strell-Lodesh triangle is pretty transparent admittedly, but both the options are really very good in their own ways, and and the whole thing is spiced up because Talo-Toecan (read Dad) doesn't approve of either option and is instead shipping Connen-Neute, who isn't interested and is in fact terrified of the secret Beast, who won't let Alissa go for either Strell or Lodesh. Plus, the whole thing is sidelined because Alissa happens to have found a way to find the lost Masters. So while the triangle is incredibly important and a satisfying part of the plot, the much more important plot is actually the power struggle between Alissa and Keribdis, Tal-Toecan's haughty estranged wife. This part of the story is fabulous.

Long story short, the flow is still good, the characters at their best, the writing still snappy, the girl gets the right guy, with just enough of a bitter-sweet to leave you wanting more.

[S · Rating 3 out of 5]

2nd reading: October 2016

Okay. I like this series, but I do have issues with it, especially in this last book.
First of all, all of a sudden it turns out that Alissa has a secret dream friend that has never been mentioned up until now?
Second, Redal-Stan really decided he loved Alissa enough to jump forward in time, become insane, and permanently trap himself as a bird, after knowing her for, what, 2 weeks?
Third, there's all this stuff about Lodesh and how he loves Alissa, and how she loves him (though again, he fell in love with her within a matter of days...), and at the end, he just goes off to die by himself? (And starts randomly fantasizing about his first love again. I think that's my big issue with Lodesh. He seems like he's extremely committed/devoted, but he's really not.) And in an effort to have it be a happy ending still, it turns out Alissa is pregnant? Lucky her, after being married just a few weeks. Geez.
Anyway. I do like this series, but there are just too many pieces that don't quite fit, which makes the whole series feel unbalanced and unfinished.

[Benjamin Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just when I was worried that this fantasy series might descend into mediocrity, it presents the final novel of the quartet in fine form. Dawn Cook (aka Kim Harrison) concludes the series with, perhaps the best book in the batch, tying together a bunch of plot strings into one cohesive whole.

At the fore-front of the issues needing to be resolved was the love triangle, of course and I, along with most readers I assume, was happy to see the result. And thankfully, this occurred fairly early in this novel, allowing the greater events surrounding Alissa’s true self and her role in the world to finally emerge. There is also a complex but satisfying resolution to the fate of the masters, the Hold, etc. After reading this concluding volume, it is now evident just how well-planned all four books were and I appreciate the set much more now than I had at the end of book 3.

This won’t go down as my favorite epic fantasy series but overall, was very much worth reading.

[David Phipps · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was the fourth and final novel of the Truth series. This book focuses on Alissa searching for the Masters who are residing on some distant islands. It isn't giving much away to say she finds them and then there is a lot of conflict as she pushes their boundaries and conventions. There was one memorable scene in this book that I distinctly remembered from the last time I read this book. Some of the drama felt forced but overall this was a solid conclusion to the series and it settles pretty much everything that was left dangling by the prior books. There also were some very touching moments in this book. I'm glad I reread these but under my more brutal criteria of whether a book is shelf-worthy or not, my dead-tree books will have to go.

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 Stars
Great end to the series!

I'm not going to say a lot in this review because I don't want to spoil this series for anyone who has not read it. I thought this was a fabulous end to the series that brought many loose ends together and tied everything up very nicely.

I've been very impressed by Dawn Cook's Truth series. This was the 4th and final book and I enjoyed them all. It's nice to find a epic fantasy series that is clean and entertaining. Glad I read these.

Content: Clean

[Katyana · Rating 4 out of 5]

****4.5****

It's a good ending to the series, but I wish Keribdis hadn't been such an over-the-top villain. She was so extreme that, to me, all the Masters (except Useless) are unforgivable for going along with her for so long. Honestly, at the 80% mark, I just wanted Alissa to tell them they are monsters that deserve to go extinct, and walk away.

They are worthless, lazy cowards.

It's the only thing that kept this from being perfect, imo.

[Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great ending to the series, I had so much fun. Although frustrating at times, the characters are awesome, of course, and more than make up for it. It made me laugh out loud, and it made me cry. Dawn Cook/Kim Harrison definitely has a way to make her characters come alive. Very lovely. I can't wait to read the series again.

[Holly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m not sure that this really read as a series ending, but that’s probably because there was no identifiable series arc. It really just seemed like another stand alone book except for the continuation of the love triangle story from book 3. Ugh… the love triangle. I despise this trope because of how often and how much it is overused. If felt very contrived in this series and was never really believable.

The other part of this story is the “rescue” of the other Hold members who were presumed dead but are suddenly still alive and are evidently gone by choice. There is some pretty serious drama involved because Alissa is now facing judgement, bigotry, etc as a result of her differences. The leader of the group is a bit of a “Dolores Umbridge” character - in other words, hatred wrapped up in self-righteousness.

Overall, this was an okay read in a decent series. It’s got some really wonderful characters and an interesting magic system. I felt that it was missing a cohesive plot as a series and really needed more world building. The first 3 books take place in the Hold, so it winds up having an almost isolated feeling up to the final book.

[Mono9000 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ma première impression a été "tout ça pour ça". Ce tome n'apporte pas grand chose à l'histoire finalement. Mais on en apprend toujours plus sur les Gardiens et leurs règles au combien compliquées et leurs manies de tout contrôler.
On fait surtout la rencontre de Keribdis, femme de Talo Toecan, et alors quel personnage exécrable. L'auteure ne fait absolument rien pour qu'on l'aime et c'est très réussi. Quelle manipulatrice !!

Alissa fait enfin son choix et on l'avait deviné depuis un moment. Strell reste mon favori e Lodesh, il a un bon fond mais alors quel idiot. Tss...
Mais le meilleur, c'est encore Inutile ^^

L'intrigue s'achève bien vite et un peu facilement. On sentait qu'il était temps que ça se termine.
C'était plaisant à lire et je garderai un bon souvenir de cette lecture.

[S.J. Higbee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve been thoroughly enjoying this series. For those who are interested in such things, Dawn Cook is a pen name of Kim Harrison, who also writes successful urban fantasy adventures. I’ve grown very fond of impetuous, disaster-magnet Alissa, though I was increasingly fed up with the love triangle around her. And I’m glad that it’s been resolved in this book. Cook has created a vivid world where magic-users are all somewhat arrogant and short-fused. Which has interesting consequences… Marguerite Gavin does a wonderful job of the narration. 9/10

[Sandra Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great ending to this series which I enjoyed. Basically all for books tell one story without any breaks. Each one picks up right where the previous one leaves off. I admit it wasn't the best plot ever, but I liked the characters and the premise in general. Love me a good fantasy series that isn't umpteen volumes long.

[Elora Grace · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was such a good wrap-up. Again, the world building for this series is really fantastic, and we dive even deeper into the characters’ lives and their relationships. This is also the book with the most action out of the four. Alissa’s uniquely strong abilities and extra capabilities are explained in this book. I really enjoyed this series!

[Pheonix · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing!!!!

This entire series was simply amazing but this last installment has wrapped everything up in the most beautiful of bows. Dramatic and dynamic. Sweet and romantic. So glad I finally finished this series.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing

This series has romance...and is a true finding who you are book at least for Alissa...Student master travels to the lost colony to find other masters and return them to the hold with some minor snafoos along the way....

[AsmallUnicorn · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of Kim Harrison's greatest strengths as a writer is her ability to create well-thought out plots and characters and write them in a way that is truly enjoyable. I really hope to read many more series by her.

[Rebekah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book, couldn’t put it down. It took me a while to get through the first 3 books, i had to keep taking a break to get away from the characters weird wired emotions. I kept putting off reading this one. Once i started, i had a hard time putting it down.

[Elaine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was able to enjoy this book without having read the previous three in the series. Partly because the concepts are familiar and partly because so many constructs were explained merely by context and usage. Brilliant!

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Again the story was drawn out but this time with Alissa always getting hurt. The best part was with Strall.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent conclusion to the series! Way more twists and turns than I was expecting and still an opening for a continuation (though I'm guessing that's not coming any time soon unfortunately)

[Roxanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Queen of the surprise endings you did not see coming. I definitely felt the tragedy and losses in this one. Great read.

[Lisa Shumate · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've really enjoyed this series. I do wish there was another to follow.

[R · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing fantasy series! Beautifully written. I hated for it to end! Dawn Cook snagged my heart and still has it with her great storytelling style.

[Miss Phipps · Rating 5 out of 5]

The satisfying end to a great series.