Finishing the Lioness Quartet

This post may contain spoilers for the first two books in the Song of the Lioness Quartet by Tamora Pierce. My thoughts on books one and two can be found here.

From the book cover

New knighted, Alanna of Trebond seeks adventure in the vast desert of Tortall. Captured by fierce desert dwellers, she is forced to prove herself in a duel to the death – either she will be killed or she will be inducted into the tribe. Although she triumphs, dire challenges lie ahead. As her mythic fate would have it, Alanna soon becomes the tribe’s first female shaman – despite the desert dwellers’ grave fear of the foreign woman warrior. Alanna must fight to change the ancient tribal customs of the desert tribes – for their sake and for the sake of all Tortall.

Having survived her knighthood ordeal, Alanna decides to leave Tortall – and those in shock after discovering that Alan was actually Alanna – to roam in search of adventures. In true Alanna fashion, she and Coram quickly encounter trouble in the form of desert hillmen and then from the Bloody Hawk tribe of the Bazhir. The focus of this installment, then, is Alanna’s stay with the tribe from the time she bests one of their own in combat until she trains a replacement shaman.

This book, as much as I enjoyed it, went the slowest for me. My attention wavered while Alanna was in the desert, even as the magic she taught the three young Gifted Bazhir interested me, and I found myself hoping she’d go back to Tortall, or that her friends would seek her out in the desert. I raced through those pages and slowed down when Myles and Jonathan arrived.

I loved the bit between Alanna and Myles. That was awesome, seriously, and I was so glad. Jonathan’s change in behavior bothered me at first; it didn’t take me long to see why his shift in character was necessary. And my favorite part? George’s increased involvement in the story, naturally.

The thing about these books is…I couldn’t read anything else until they were done. I knew they were in my house and that knowledge drove me crazy. So as soon as I finished The Woman Who Rides Like a Man I moved on, picked up Lioness Rampant, and…

Having achieved her dream of becoming the first female knight errant, Alanna of Trebond is not sure what to do next. Perhaps being a knight errant is not all that Alanna needs….But Alanna must push her uncertainty aside when a new challenge arises. She must recover the Dominion Jewel, a legendary gem with enormous power for good — but only in the right hands. And she must work quickly. Tortall is in great danger, and Alanna’s archenemy, Duke Roger, is back — and more powerful than ever. In this final book of the Song of the Lioness quartet, Alanna discovers that she indeed has a future worthy of her mythic past — both as a warrior and as a woman.

Why oh why aren’t there more books in this series? I loved everything about Lioness Rampant even though it broke my heart at times. (Thom *sniff*)

At first I was all like, “ah, what’s up with this Dragon dude, and why is he elbowing in on George’s girl, yo” – but really I loved his character, and I thought that he brought so much to both the story and Alanna. (Those hand-to-hand combat scenes? Awesome.)

Roger is one of the most nefarious bad guys I’ve encountered in YA fantasy (right up there next to Cashore’s Leck – who makes my skin crawl in the worst way.) You know he’s up to no good the whole book and, man, did his patience annoy me. I wanted his smackdown to come much, much sooner, but was totally satisfied with how it played out. Seriously, that whole end bit? Kept me on the edge of my seat.

These books are soooo good. And I know I’m going to revisit them. For now, though, I’m going to read more by Pierce, starting with, I think, Wild Magic. I can’t wait to get back to Tortall!