Briar's book (original 1999; edition 1999)

Listened to Full Cast Audio edition November 2007. ( )

Briar and Rosethorn battle an epidemic.

A nice end to this series. Being away from home made me clingy with these friendly characters so I started the next quartet right away. ( )

Tamora Pierce has learned her lesson and stopped trying to write from too many points of view at the same time, which is definitely a good thing. Otherwise I'm not too impressed by this one as the plot is more or less non-existent... or perhaps it's just the one I remembered the best. ( )

I originally reviewed this book on my blog - The Cosy Dragon. For more recent reviews by me, please hop over there.

Briar was brought up as a street rat from age 4. Now he finds it hard to balance his gang upbringing with his new life at the temple. With plague on the way, Briar must learn new skills quickly. But will it be fast enough to save those he loves?

This book is told almost entirely from Briar's point of view. The progress of the plot is rapid, and you will find it difficult to break away from the narrative. Pierce is a master craftswoman, filling out characters seemlessly with the books that came before.

The ending of this book is gripping, you won't want to put it down. It didn't take me very long to reread this book, but if you are reading for the first time you may want to dedicate more time to enjoying events.

Of the books in this quartet, this one is the most disturbing for me. I don't enjoy the plague at all, as it's easy to be reminded of swine flu. The close calls of a number of friends of the four children are very close to home for me.

Sadly for me, as you can see in the above picture, I have the hardcopy version of this book which was sent to me by mistake. As an Australian customer, I find it too expensive to send things back. If anyone would like to swap this book with me for the paperback version, I would love for my collection to be matching!

I'd recommend this book for children and teenagers. There are some ugly parts of the book, but nothing that I feel is too out there. If you have read through the first three books, nothing in this book will be a surprise. ( )

This is the fourth book in the Circle of Magic series, set in a completely different world than Pierce's Tortall books. Coming to this series after those books, I felt I had taken a step back, since they were written earlier than her later books in that universe, and Pierce grew as a writer through that experience. But this world about four young mages and friends in training have a charm of their own. The three prior books were centered on Sandry, Tris, and Daja. This is the turn of Briar. Briar is Pierce's only male protagonist to date; she's generally known for her heroines. I'd say thought that Briar is as appealing as any of her female characters, and carries his tale well. I didn't want to let go of the story at the end. ( )