Day 02-A book or series you wish more people were reading and talking about

The Trickster Series by Tamora Pierce (Trickster’s Choice and Trickster’s Queen)

This is the fourth Tortall series by Tamora Pierce. She has been writing fantasy since the publication of her first novel: Alanna: The First Adventure in 1981. Her series are:

The Song of the Lioness (story of Alanna)

The Immortals (story of Daine)

The Protector of the Small (story of Keladry)

and this series. I do recommend reading them in order. I read them backwards and, well, lets just say it ruins the surprises in other books haha.

The Basic Plot: Alianne, daughter of the Tortall King’s Champion, the first woman knight in a century, and the King’s spymaster, has many choices laid out in front of her for her future: a Queen’s Rider, a lady-in-waiting, a knight, a scholar at the best universities, etc. However, she doesn’t want any of that; she wants to be a spy. Of course, this is out of the question and not a suitable career for a well-bred noblewoman. After an argument with her mother goes awry, she decides to leave her home on a short trip to give her mother some time to calm down. However, she is kidnapped by pirates and sold into slavery at the nearby Copper Isles. It is there that she learns of the different people: the white luarin, who rule the country once ruled by the dark skinned raka. She gets swept up in a rebellion to restore the country to its rightful owners.

The Awesomeness: The basic awesomeness of these books is that they’re fantasy…of girls kicking ass. You have Alanna, the heroine of the first series, who disguises herself as a boy so she can become the first female knight in centuries. You have Daine, who has the immense power of Wild magic, and can speak to animals and heal them and uses this for good. Then there is Keladry, the first female to openly go for her knighthood. Then you have Aly, who is fiercely intelligent and clever and helps put together a spy network for the rebellion going on in the Copper Isles. Its fantastic because they are written so well and they are extremely believable and relatable. They read easily but keep you caught up. There’s humor and fighting and action and yes, a bit of romance, but its all intertwined so well.

Reasons Why it Fits this Category: Now these books aren’t exactly new. Like I said earlier, the Song of the Lioness was written in the 1980s, before I was even born. The Trickster series was published back in 2003 and 2004. Not the oldest of books but not exactly new either. And these books are very very overlooked. You can ask most young adult girls today and they probably haven’t read them. One, not one of her books has been made into a movie (which I just love!) and two, her books do have romance but its not a huge component of the storyline and usually the heroine chooses her dreams and her ambitions over the romance. This is completely not whats popular right now. We are in the days of Twilight, Fifty Shades of Grey, etc. Even some of my favorite books like Hunger Games and the Mortal Instruments have those elements of romance, true love, having to choose between two suitors, etc. But that is what makes Tamora Pierce’s books so good. They are giving us strong female characters that fight for what they want and what they believe in, and fall in love but never let it take them away from what they are doing. This is why I think more people should be reading these books.

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