The final book in the Alex and Eliza trilogy may just be my favorite as De La Cruz fully leans into what makes the Hamilton’s love story so memorable all these years later. Eliza and her forgiveness, and the love the Hamiltons shared for each other and their country despite their flaws.

Set a year after book 2, the Hamiltons are eager to start their own family but have been busy with their roving social scene of rehabilitated New York and Alexander’s booming clientele as the lawyer of hopeless causes. Not that their dry spell lasts for long, Eliza soon finds herself pregnant and the impending future brings joy and stress.

On Eliza’s side, her maternal instincts are already emerging as she works on her pet charity cause, the orphans and fundraising to build a housing facility to serve New York’s orphanage population. Ontop of that, she takes in a girl of modest station, Emma, as a lady’s companion and hosts her younger brother, John Schuyler whose come to NY to attend Columbia College. With her maternal instincts already budding, she schemes to uplift Emma’s station by pairing her with her younger brother, hoping Emma’s calm will soften the carousing lothorio and he will liven her from her sturdy, duty-driven life.

Hamilton is thrilled to bits that they’re about to start a family, he wants nothing more to be the father he never had. But in typical Hamilton dramatics, he spirals when he thinks of the legacy or lack of financial legacy he will has to provide for his kids. While he’s respected, he hasn’t exactly been raking money from his needy clients. The new Trinity case will be a financial boon, and maybe he’ll finally be able to sooth his ego that he can keep Eliza in the manner shes accustomed and keep up with the privileged peers of New York.

However, another case is also taking up his attention and hitting close to home. That of a battered young woman seeking to divorce her abusive husband. A woman who has shady past, and whose similarities with his beloved, suffering mother strike a nerve. Yes, it’s Maria Reynolds.

Set in 1785, De La Cruz speeds up the timeline of the Reynolds Affair which occured in 1791-92 while Eliza was pregnant with thier third son, not first, but artistic license can be excused here as she explores the complexities of one of the worst betrayals.

As usual, her portrayal of Hamilton is perfect. Locquacious, ambitious, lost in his fragile insecurity of his past and what he wants to emulate, hopelessly emotional and passionate. His love for Eliza doesn’t waver but the aforementioned insecurities about his common past cause him to be distant. He’s shouldering the burden of the time’s expectation that he has to be the breadwinner, they have to host, they have to go out to operas, and it all costs money and though America is supposed to not be as classist as their old colonial ancestor, the families they mingle with have coffers of inheritances to depend on while he’s a working man.

De La Cruz makes it clear from the beginning how Hamilton is confusing Maria with his mother, his pity for her and affection for her a surrogate for being unable to save his mother which is why he’s so easy to dismiss the rumors surrounding her that she’s trying to entrap him or she’s a whore because then he’d be blaming his mother for her misfortunes and he can’t face that.

Also she understands him in a way Eliza doesn’t. Hamilton can barely speak about his past or his mother, very defensive whenever the subject is brought up, because of his own raw emotion and the feeling is just improper. But the subject of class is also in the way. Eliza believes in the values of America that status should depend on skill and qualification, not family name, but she doesn’t quite understand that you can have those skills but never be given a chance like Hamilton’s mother was. Maria gets that, she gets the hardness of life and is unafraid to say the ugly words outloud. And Hamilton finds relief in that, and finds temptation in that commonality.

Eliza for her own part senses the burgeoning connection but is also trusting of her husband and with how much Hamilton does love her, she tries to put uncharitable jealousies aside because Maria is a battered woman as far as she knows. Still, the lingering suspicion and Hamilton’s aforementioned guilty thoughts preclude his guilty actions and shadow the whole novel with a ominous sense of doom.

As for Eliza’s matchmaking, it begins as a well-intentioned lark as she truly believes the opposites-attract idea of her brother and Emma belonging with each other but soon reveals Eliza’s own snobbery. She plays with their lives because she wants to improve them but there is also a sense of control of a benevolant hostess.

As Emma powerfully retorts to Eliza that she prefers the more honest approch of others who are clearly classists and snobby because with Eliza she blurs the line between friend and employer when it suits her and doesn’t grasp that while class stratification is unfair it does color their society and forcing change on individuals with their own wants and desires is not the right way to push about the change.

I loved how De La Cruz delves into the potential flaws of Eliza who is seen primarily as saintly woman with her compassion as well as how it may have made communication difficult between the couple.

Their reunion after the affair is also solid as Eliza doesn’t immediately Hamilton. It comes about in dramatic fashion much like the first book but it shows Eliza’s wrath and Hamilton’s remorse, their pragmatic choice to be there for their child and slowly coming together again because Eliza knows she loves Hamilton depsite their flaws. That marriage is work and it is better to know now, make their marriage stronger by seeing the true Icarus and not the paper-doll fantasy she had first had of him as a teenager when they met.

Near the end of the novel, there is more omipresent narrator in the internal dialogue with characters theorizing why they had done this actions as they think back like Hamilton reflecting on his affair and wondering why he went to Maria that night (he was lonely, he wanted to apologize to her for avoiding her, he wanted comfort) much as historians will theorize in the future. I’ll admit it took me out a bit but she probably wanted to cover her bases after the very inaccurate first book.

But Eliza is the true star of the book much as she carries the heart of the musical and I love the depth she added to her story and their marriage.

5 stars.