i just finished reading the last book in deborah harkness’ trilogy, “the book of life.” i just finished rereading the first two books in the trilogy so i was prepared for this one (they books are long and full of stuff). 
i think i picked up the first book, “a discovery of wtiches”, after either reading about it in an mpr review or on a booklist i used to belong to. i read it, thought it was wonderfully pretentious, and immediately told liz that she had to read it (witches and vampires and smut – oh my!). 
at the time, i didn’t realize it was a part of a trilogy (although it was set up for it), so when the second book was announced, yay! 
as for the last book, i think it’s my favorite. the previous two books seemed to have a lot of extra stuff that didn’t really need to be written in the book. this book, however, had everything in it that needed to be written about (well, maybe too much about baptism preparations, etc).
it was also more light-hearted than the other two. she introduced a looser character (chris), and all the characters in the story were pivotal (unlike the second book). i know there are reviews out there that are criticizing the plot and the point of view (big whoop). but i just found these books engrossing. it was quite the shock moving from reading a stark stephen king book to harkness’ florid prose, but it was a welcome change (especially since i have a king book to read in the near future). 
some beefs: i think the confrontation with satu was a letdown; there should have been more of an internal sturggle to the spellbinding; i feel like spellbinding is such an affront to witches that it would’ve been better for diana and satu to have a showdown. i wanted a bigger deal when diana finally got ashmole back. i wanted to know more about rebecca bishop’s spellbook. hmmm….i’m sure i’ll think of more. 
ps – love gallowglass 🙂