Tamora Pierce – YA Fantasy Goddess!

I have now read most everything that Tamora Pierce has published. She has quickly become one of my favorite authors. After blogging about 23 of her books, I thought a summary was in order. I HIGHLY recommend you read her books!

Tamora has two sets of books – those that take place in Tortall and the surrounding countries and those that take place in and around Emelan.

Tortall
One of the great things about the Tortall books is that once you get attached to the characters in the first series, and you finish reading it, you get to see those people in the future books of Tortall. The main character in the first series – Song of the Lioness – shows up in each of the three series that follow. This is true of the Immortals series, Protector of the Small and Daughter of the Lioness. Her newest book in the Tortall collection is Terrier. It is the first of three books that take place 200 years before the beginning of Song of the Lioness. (There are also plans for Tamora to create a book or two on the early years of Numair and the coming of age of Maura of Dunlath – both introduced in the Immortals series.)

Song of the Lioness
Alanna: The First Adventure
In the Hand of the Goddess
The Woman Who Rides Like a Man
Lioness Rampant
The Song of the Lioness books follow the life of Alanna of Trebond who disguises herself as her brother “Alan” so she can enter school to become a knight.

The Immortals
Wild Magic
Wolf-Speaker
Emperor Mage
The Realm of the Gods
When Daine, Veralidaine Sarrasri, applies for a job to help with the horse of the Queen’s Riders, it is discovered that she has a wild magic that allows her to talk to animals.

Protector of the SmallFirst Test
Page
Squire
Lady Knight
Ten years after King Jonathan VI proclaimed that women could become knights, Keladry of Mindelan applies as the first to attempt it. She will be the only girl in 200 years to go to knight school other than Alanna the Lioness who snuck in disguised as a boy.

Daughter of the Lioness
Trickster’s Choice
Trickster’s Queen

Alanna’s daughter Alianne (Aly) of Pirate’s Swoop, does not want to follow in her mother’s footsteps and become a lady knight. She wants to follow her father into the spy business. But the gods may have a path already chosen for her.

A Tortall Legend, Beka Cooper
Terrier
Bloodhound
Mastiff

These books take place 200 years before the Song of the Lioness series. Only Terrier is currently available. Beka Cooper is a “Puppy” with the law-enforcing Provost’s Guard, known as the Guard Dogs.

Numair Chronicles, Arram Draper
Tempest and Slaughter

Arram Draper, a powerful though young mage, travels across the Inland Sea to attend magic school in the Carthaki Empire. 

Emelan
The Circle books revolve around four friends – Sandry, Tris, Daja and Briar – and their teachers. They each have very powerful magic that does not fit into the usual categories.

Sandry – Lady Sandrilene fa Toren – is the niece of the Duke of Emelan and has tread magic; she is a stitch-witch. She discovered her magic after being locked in a dark room and using her magic to keep a light going for days.

Tris – Trisana Chandler – is from the merchant class and has weather magic, everything from lightening to earthquakes. Her family passed her from house to house each time she lost her temper and released tornados or lightening.

Daja Kisubo is a Traveler (those who collect things from the artists and travel to sell them to merchants) and has metal magic. She is the sole survivor of a shipwreck that killed her family.

Briar Moss is a street rat who has plant magic. As he was being sentenced to a life of hard labor for his third conviction for stealing, he is rescued to Winding Circle.

Circle of MagicSandry’s Book
Tris’s Book
Daja’s Book
Briar’s Book

In the Circle of Magic books the friends come to Winding Circle School and learn to control their magic. In the first book, Sandry weaves their magic together making them stronger than most any other mage around.

The Circle OpensMagic Steps
Street Magic
Cold Fire
Shatterglass
In the Circle Opens books the friends are separated from each other. Briar, Daja and Tris are traveling with their teachers to learn more of the world and their magic. Sandry has stayed behind to care for her uncle. Each of the four get their first students in this series.

Circle ReforgedThe Will of the EmpressMelting Stones (2008)

After spending a couple of years apart from each other, the four meet again in Emelan. They are not as close as they once were, but when Sandry is called to her lands in Namorn by the Empress she asks Tris, Briar and Daja to accompany her. In The Will of the Empress, they will either have to learn to work their magics together once again or they may not survive.

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Tamora Pierce is a great fiction writer. Her books are adventurous, well-written, and believable. Though I love and recommend both series’ I like the Tortall a bit more.

Start reading them today!

Lioness Rampant (Song of the Lioness #4)

The final book in Tamora Pierce's Song of the Lioness series is Lioness Rampant. Alanna's story continues were The Woman Who Rides Like a Man left off.

Alanna and her man-at-arms, Coram, are still looking for adventure. At the beginning of the book they are in Maren, a country east of Tortall. While there Alanna meets a Shang Warrior. She is eager to learn the Shang style of fighting. This training may be just the thing she needs to survive her next adventure.

It took me a while to read this book even though it is great. I wanted to know what happened next, but I knew it was the last book in the series. Then after looking at Tamora Pierce's website, I found out that there are many other series' that take place in Tortall. Not all have the same characters, but some do.

The other Tortall books include:

The Immortals Series: Wild Magic, Wolf-Speaker, The Emperor Mage, and The Realm of the Gods.

Protector of the Small: First Test, Page, Squire, and Lady Knight.

Daughter of the Lioness: Trickster's Choice and Trickster's Queen.

Beka Cooper: Terrier, Bloodhound and Elkhound (2009).

Yippee! I will be reading them all as soon as I can get them from the library. These are great books by an easy to read author with a gift for story-telling. I would recommend this series to anyone. It is not only fun to read, but has a female hero which is not always the norm in the fantasy genre.

Pierce, Tamora. (1998). Lioness Rampant. New York: Simon Pulse.

The Woman Who Rides Like a Man (Song of the Lioness #3)

The third book in Tamora Pierce's Song of the Lioness series, The Woman Who Rides Like a Man begins just after Alanna goes through the Ordeal of Knighthood.

Alanna of Trebond heads south seeking adventure in the land of Tortall. She and Coram journey through the Great Southern Desert on their way to the coast. But it is forbidden by the Bazhir to travel through their desert without permission.

Will Alanna and Coram be able to talk their way out of the fix they have gotten into? What will the Bazhir tribe of the Bloody Hawk do with the trespassers?

In this volume of the quartet Alanna, after living in the palace for the last eight years, will find out what it means to have to make decisions on her own. Of course, she has never been one to sit back and let others decide for her. What will she choose? And perhaps more importantly, whom will she choose - George, the King of the Rogue, or Jonathan, Prince of Tortall?

Pierce, Tamora. (1986). The woman who rides like a man. New York: Simon Pulse.

In the Hand of the Goddess (Song of the Lioness #2)

The second book of the Song of the Lioness quartet, In the Hand of the Goddess, continues the adventures of Alanna of Trebond. The first book, Alanna, got herself into school to become a knight by posing as a boy.

Now her years of training continue. The mastery of all aspects of knighthood are not as hard to learn as the changes in her body. She is finding it more and more difficult to conceal the fact that she is becoming a woman.

Now that Alanna, known as Alan at school, is the squire to Prince Jonathan her quest to keep him from the evil eyes of those who would usurp the thrown from him. Her skill with swords and sorcery will both be needed to keep him safe during the war with the invading neighbor.

Does Alanna have the knowledge and strength to guard Jonathan and keep her secret hidden from those around her? She will get some help in that department from a powerful source...

Pierce, Tamora. (1984). In the Hand of the Goddess. New York: Simon Pulse.

Alanna: The First Adventure (Song of the Lioness #1)

After reading Tamora Pierce's The Will of the Empress, I decided to check out some of her other books...

Alanna: The First Adventure, is the first book in the Song of the Lioness quartet.

Alanna and her twin brother Thom are about to be shipped off to boarding school - or the equivalent in their country of Tortall. Thom is to go to the palace to become a knight and Alanna is off to the convent to become a Lady. Except Thom wants to go to the convent to become a sorcerer and Alanna wants to be a knight. They solve this small set-back by forging a new letter from their father, saying the twins are two boys. Thom gets to study magic and Alanna is off, in her disguise, to become a knight.

How will she be able to fool all of the others at the palace? Will she be found out? And if not, will she have the strength to battle the boys her age and not flunk out of knight training?

And what will happen when she gets just a bit older and it is more difficult to hide the fact that she is becoming a woman?

This first book is great. It is followed by In the Hand of the Goddess, The Woman Who Rides Like a Man, and Lioness Rampart.

Pierce, Tamora. (1983). Alanna: The first adventure. New York: Simon Pulse.