This really follows immediately after Mindtouch and continues their journey towards both their professional and personal development goals. I just never get tired of following the adventures of these two protagonists. This book is hard to put down!

Very engaging story. Loveable characters and amazing world-building. I had trouble putting it down. It’s a good thing I was able to pick up the sequel immediately after because Mindtouch and Mindline are so sequential they may as well be one book in two volumes!

ETA: This book has become a comfort read that I return to often.

I should have written this review soon after finishing the book; unfortunately, the next 16 novels (the remaining four of Dreamhealers, Girl on Fire and all of Princes' Game and Earthrise) got in the way. Hogarth's writing is easy to pick up and pathologically difficult to put down; this is sometimes balanced in the series with heavier content, but most of the Dreamhealers novels are cosy enough that this doesn't really happen.

As a result they have cost me at least two evenings of sleep. (I begrudge them nothing. Jahir and Vasiht'h are exemplary company, and they will grow on you as surely as the lioyasea on Rose Point - though that is another novel!)

An extremely poor summary of Mindtouch's plot is "space elf and centaur meet-cute at space-college in space". This is not in any particular inaccurate, but it also completely misses the point of the novel - in some respects that the plot itself, construed purely as a series of events through which the characters must navigate, is not the most important part of the novel.

While this is an intentionally uncharitable and reductive reading - and worth returning to when it comes time to explore the later novels - Mindtouch does have the distinction of depicting the characters in the most stable circumstances we will ever see, and thus is (almost) entirely driven by their intrinsic motivations.

This means that Mindtouch is, uniquely even among Hogarth novels, almost entirely about *people*, their ways of sense-making about the world and their place in it (and sometimes, their struggle towards that end). Not that Hogarth fails to replicate this later - Hogarth's own curiosity about other people is so nakedly effervescent fully half her protagonists foam with it - but from even as early as Mindline the characters have more pressing matters to attend than themselves and each other. In this, Mindtouch has a licence to focus on its central platonic romance in a way its sequels don't quite.

More precisely, Mindtouch is about philoxenia - literally 'stranger-loving'. This etymology is worth dwelling upon: it comes from 'philoxenos', from philos ('love') and 'xenos' ('stranger'). 'Xenos' can also refer to a recipient of hospitality, i.e. a guest, and 'philoxenia' is thus also translated as 'hospitality'. It is in this reading that the Greek Bible renders Hebrews 13:2 thus:
τῆς *φιλοξενίας* μὴ ἐπιλανθάνεσθε· διὰ ταύτης γὰρ ἔλαθόν τινες ξενίσαντες ἀγγέλους.
"Do not neglect hospitality, for by it some have entertained angels."

If Mindtouch has a moral, it is perhaps precisely this. There are after all no true villains in Mindtouch - only closed perspectives and prejudices. Vasiht’h, itinerant homemaker and would-be therapist, helps Jahir, an alien of striking beauty and nobility, find his feet among the Alliance. In turn, Jahir’s attention is almost wholly beset with a fascination with finding what is good and common between himself and people unlike him, and how what makes them unique does so.

I chose to quote scripture in part because the novel explores comparative religion, such as Vasiht'h's belief in Aksivaht'h and her tenets. Faith - whether expressed as actual religion, or merely the commitment to particular values and convictions - is an important component of personal identity both as a unifying and distinguishing factor in the Alliance: the races of the Alliance mostly have their own religions, but also a common set of values upon which the Alliance is founded. This is easily a subject which can be rendered either overbearing or esoteric, but Hogarth does neither - through the magic of the characters simply being sincerely curious, earnest and unjudging. In this too, is philoxenia - the virtue of treating others with dignity and respect, even as they are unlike you, except that you may trust they will hold you in similar esteem.

The astute reader - or perhaps one who has read past the end of Dreamhealers - will note I am emphasizing idealism and goodwill. 17 novels in hindsight, Mindtouch remains singularly precious, not merely because it was first, but because it alone captures a kind of circumstantial innocence that is inevitably lost as the characters grow up into their mature, consequential roles later in the setting - not a loss, precisely, but a particular and sweet sorrow. Mindtouch is the one novel where it is most obvious that the experience of reading it for the first time can only be had once, and thereafter only fondly remembered. It is about a simpler time; about where people come from and how they reason about where they might be going - before the universe throws life at them, ready or not.

But that is another novel!

(It’s Mindline. Really, Mindtouch and Mindline are one book; if you read Mindtouch alone the ending feels rushed, but it clearly makes sense if you see them as a duology with a single plot structure running from the start of one to the end of the other. I hear Hogarth does bundles.)

I loved this book! It's a cozy LitRPG book featuring a family where the mother who never games joins her teenage son in a beta test of an immersive AI powered version of his favorite MOBA. I absolutely want to play the game lol. It's sweet, the characters grow, and the AI is benevolent.

Characters who grow and change plus an engrossing story are cornerstones of Ms. Hogarth's writing and this book has both in spades. I loved it and couldn't have asked for a better epic game final battle or a better finale to the story.

Cute and funny, sweet and poignant, and with the delightful characters I have come to expect and cherish from Ms. Hogarth. My Small Human (9yrs old when we first read these together), also loves these books. She's now read them (on her own) at least 5 more times.

read with a smile on my face the whole time

As a sequel to Thief of Songs, it's an interesting and satisfying look at Always Falling's and Amet's relationships. But what fascinated most of all was the sea serpents. I wanted to learn everything about them, and by the end of the book, I can easily say that they've become one of my favorite species in her catalog.

I loved this book! My poor dogs had to wait to go for their morning walk because I stayed up late reading the book, fell asleep while reading, then woke up and kept reading till I had finished. I loved the way the family reconnected, the complexity of all the people that populated the book, and I totally related to just wanting to wander and appreciate the world around you. Definitely on my re-read list.

Well-written, pulls the reader in at once. I'm rooting for Reese and her crew all the way through-and I need to get on board and pick up.the sequels.

Essential reading for all Kerishdar fans.

Full of my favorite characters, celebrating my favorite season, this is a lovely collection.

Oh, _wow_. I loved Haley, but this is even better. A slightly different angle on LitRPG - the characters are playing an immersive online fantasy game, which has just gone (beta) from graphics on a screen to a VR, all-senses game. And the protagonists are a teenager and his mom. The game, and the story in/of the game, are fantastic; the way the real world connects, alters, and is altered by the game and the connections made there is amazing. The game AI (which is clearly awakening) is the final fillip that makes it perfect. Everything from battle to building to deep philosophical questions, all fitting perfectly within the story - nothing is a digression or a distraction from the story arc. The way the _characters_ are altered by their interactions in/because of the game is perfect. I was strongly reminded of Diane Duane's Omnitopia - not at all the same story, but a lot of the same flavor. I loved that this story was able to integrate building and breaking and make them work together. I could babble on for ages (though if I say much more it'll be spoilers) - I'll stop here.

Another fantastic outing with some of our favorite characters from the Pelted universe and some new characters to fall in love with. This series is so amazingly all encompassing and I never fail to get sucked in and can’t stop reading until I’ve finished every single book 🙂

The second book in the Dreamhealers series follows Jahir and Vasiht'h as they make their first major professional decisions, and reap the consequences. Mindline follows directly from Mindtouch, telling the story of how the two begin the process of growing into their professional, adult selves.

None of this is easy, of course. Have you ever had to make a decision that would set the trajectory of the rest of your life? Had to weigh up what you thought you wanted against what you thought you might be good at, against the fear of disappointing others? Had to decide whether it is best to let someone make their own mistakes, or to try to support them in their work and perhaps shield them from consequences?

Mindline continues what Mindtouch began, and presents a window on two complex lives. Lives full of ups and downs and wins and losses. But then - as long as you're not dead, there's always time left for change.