I asked for recommendations last summer or this fall or sometime LOL, anyway, one of the best recs for me was Robin Hobb's Assassin series. Six books total, but she wrote the first trilogy and then wrote the Live Ships' series, then returned for another trilogy with the Fool and Fitz. I loved the first three slightly more than the last three but that's not to say the last three were bad it was just that she was wrapping up the characters in a way to put that world/characters to a natural end. And that fact alone was enough to make me sad! One of the best written series ever in my opinion.