Tamora Pierce

Tamora Pierce is one of my all time favourite writers. I adore everything she puts her mind to and her Song of the Lioness was one of the first fandoms I really got in to. I devoured it and then turned to the rest of her backlist. I'd scour messenger boards for spoilers, read all available fanfiction and anxiously anticipate every new book. I spent months and then years reading and rereading everything.

I was lucky enough to have the chance to meet her and for a woman usually confident and show more capable of putting herself out there I could barely speak. I was bouncing off the walls before, during and after and my mother could not stop laughing at me for being so starstruck. But Tamora Pierce is my hero.

Before there was Hermione Granger, Tamora Pierce gave us heroines like Alanna, Daine, Kel, Daja, Sandry, Tris and all of the other wonderful characters she created. Female characters who were brave and fearless and daring and stubborn and kind. Characters who were dedicated and loyal and capable of epic badassery and characters who were confident of and in their beliefs and the ways they needed to act to encourage change.

Tamora Pierce delivers satisfying and believable characters arcs, lush world building and vivid adventure stories that spark the imagination and create passionate life long fans.

Circle of Magic introduces four teens, Sandrilene "Sandry" fa Toren, Daja Kisubo, Briar Moss and Trisana Chandler who are brought together when they are found to have magic. Discovered by Niklaren "Niko" Goldeye, a mage with a talent for finding hidden things, the four are mages with rare abilities.

Taken to Winding Circle Temple, the four are housed in Discipline cottage under the care of Dedicates Lark and Rosethorn and found mentors in their areas. Apart from weather mage Tris who is mentored by Niko, the rest all find mentors with the same magic. Thread magic for Lark and Sandry, plant magic for Rosethorn and Briar and smith magic for Daja and Dedicate Frostpine.

Each book sees the quartet develop their magic abilities separately and together and build strong bonds of family and friendship between each other and their mentors. With adventure, magic mishaps, pirates and a host of other complications, the Circle of Magic books are exciting and action packed reading for fantasy lovers.

The first book, The Magic in the Weaving, is Sandrilene "Sandry" fa Toren's book. Although written in third person, Sandry is at the heart of this book and the large majority focuses on her history and her magic.

Kind, caring and fiery about injustice, Sandry is the thread that weaves the gang together. Literally. I adored this bit;

Now that her magic was focused, the spindle was as visible to Sandry as if she worked on the spiral road at noon; so were the bits of her friends that they had put into her lumpy thread. Gently she touched Briar with a magical hand, and drew out a slim green fibre. From Tris she drew a blue one, the colour of deep, fresh water. Daja’s was the reddish orange of a hot coal fire. Her own was the honey colour of undyed silk and flax.

Pierce, Tamora. Circle of Magic #1: Magic In the Weaving . Scholastic. Kindle Edition.

She was orphaned when a plague took her parents and the ensuing mob killed her beloved nurse but remains a force of positivity for herself and others. She is the great niece of the current ruler of Emelan, Duke Verdis, has travelled all over and is always ready to stick up for the underdog. Sandry wins over the prickly hearts of the other three with her persistence and her loyal and big heart.

[Sandry] sighed. “Not you, too! No, my mind’s made up. I’ll make friends with whomever I want, so there. I just need more uvumi [patience].”

Pierce, Tamora. Circle of Magic #1: Magic In the Weaving . Scholastic. Kindle Edition.

I loved reading about the four discovering their powers and slowly becoming friends with each other. I love them all but Briar would have to be my favourite. His attitude, sarcasm and logic are just perfection. And his relationship with Rosethorn is fantastic. I love how they're both prickly but somehow manage to work past it to become family.

Just as he was about to stand, he saw the trick. “You’ll hang me in the well.” Rosethorn sighed. That foot tapped again, impatient now. “No, I won’t. I water this garden with what’s in there – I’m not about to poison it.” This made sense.

Pierce, Tamora. Circle of Magic #1: Magic In the Weaving . Scholastic. Kindle Edition.

Rosethorn is a total badass and I love how Briar looks up to her.

“No. Listen, you four,” Rosethorn said, “while you’re here, address problems or questions or needs to Lark. She likes children, the Green Man alone knows why. “I don’t like children in my garden – not without my say so, anyway,” she added with a glance at Briar. “Play somewhere else. Tell Lark where you go, always. Me, you leave alone. And that workshop on the side of the house, the one that’s mostly wood? That’s mine, too. Touch anything in there, and you will die the worst death I can invent.” She looked at each of them in turn, then smiled, showing teeth. “I’m glad we had this little talk.”

Placing her napkin beside her plate, Rosethorn went outside. For a moment there was silence. Then Lark said, “Her bark is worse than her bite.”
“Bet her bite’s poisonous,” muttered Daja.
“And with the bark you die slow,” added Tris. They grinned, then remembered that merchants and Traders disliked each other, and turned away.

Pierce, Tamora. Circle of Magic #1: Magic In the Weaving . Scholastic. Kindle Edition.

The fight to save Little Bear was funny. I loved that Sandry had managed to make the others feel obligated to help. Tris irritated me a little bit with that though, I wanted her to be a bit more willing. And if she wasn't, fine but she really annoyed me when she told Sandry to be quiet because the fight was already bad enough. Have some guts. Just because Tris screwed up with the magic, doesn't change the fact that the boys were in the wrong beating up an animal. I liked that Sandry was going to bat for him.

And I loved Briar and his shakkan plant

Briar sought out his shakkan as soon as he returned to the cottage. It had taken no harm from the quake; the shallow dish was uncracked, the earth inside just as he’d left it. Putting his hands on the thick trunk to thank the tree, he now felt the power that had been hidden in it before, sunk deep in each fibre. It also had buds at the end of each twig. “None of that,” he warned, starting to pinch them off. “Your helping me doesn’t mean I’ll let you grow any which-way.” He felt something like a tree-sigh under his hands. The shakkan thought, Perhaps one new bud? “Oh, all right,” Briar said. “Which do you want to keep?”

Pierce, Tamora. Circle of Magic #1: Magic In the Weaving . Scholastic. Kindle Edition.

The shakkan totally deserves a new bud for helping save them.

The friendship between them all gets off to a rough start but soon develops into mutual respect, affection and loyalty and it was great. Plus their little found family with their mentors was perfection. I particularly enjoyed how they use their powers to save themselves when they end up trapped in the cavern with Little Bear.

A classic fantasy series with magic, friendships and adventure. 5 stars. show less

A deeply thoughtful adventure, with a very human situation despite the magical adventure aspects. Pierce's main strength is her fantastic ability to weave an engrossing story with a really complex plot that doesn't lose the reader.

Tris is a grand character, not at all a stereotype and always acting unexpectedly in managing the difficulties that come her way. I'm not so sure this story would be comfortable for imaginative tweens to read, but it can be very captivating for older teens and show more certainly the complexity will bring it up to an adult story, provided the reader accepts the fantasy elements.

This 'Circle Opens' series best read in order. I discovered I enjoyed the books more having waded through the initial 'Circle of Magic' series first, a somewhat less sophisticated introduction the the 4 young mages. show less

Briar escaped life as a homeless young thief when his magic was discovered. Since then, he has renamed himself and, to a certain extent, reinvented himself. He realizes how much he's changed in skills, outlook and assumptions (like trusting authorities, or actually *wanting* to be clean) when one of his street-rat friends falls ill. And as the illness spreads, and plague envelops the city, Briar is forced to come to terms with his new destiny.

This book is basically everything I have ever show more wanted in fiction. Outbreak investigation AND structural inequalities of health AND magic? It is like Tamora Pierce wrote this book just for me. So I can't pretend to be even partially objective or trustworthy about this novel, except to say that I am so, so thankful that someone is actually writing this kind of story in a fantasy setting. The plot involves garbage collection, waste disposal, differential health care access, medical resources rationing--all the dirty, earthy, banal things that get ignored in traditional sf/f (and, to be fair, most fiction regardless of genre). But it's not without wonder, either; Pierce describes magic in a way that thrills me to my core. You might not assume that plant magic could be written in a way that makes your heart beat faster, but Pierce can do it. The characters in this series have grown far richer since their unsubtle introductions. (And astonishingly, Pierce accomplishes this without making them all assholes, or giving them increasingly unlikely traumatic pasts. Take note, modern grimdark fantasy novelists--it can be done!)

I love that Pierce chose to step outside the easy plots of human antagonists. It opened her plots up to include all sorts of events most authors never get to grapple with, like natural disasters and resource admininstration. In this world, even magic isn't limitless, and magicians need to be wise in their use of it. And they can't do everything--the best way to weave is still to do it by hand, and not all fires can be stopped. That was another aspect of this series that I loved: the acknowledgment that not everything can be fully understood or controlled. Even the most powerful wizard in Pierce's world can't stop the tides, and even if she could, it would lead to even greater disasters. Trying to control too much is actually a serious flaw, which is a fantastically novel viewpoint to find in a sf/f story. I think I'm starting to babble here, but I really just loved everything about this series. It's written for a younger audience, so the writing isn't that sophisticated (except for the descriptions of magic use, which are seriously the most enthralling things ever), but the ideas are. I can't think of another fantasy series that looks at classism, the limitations of a humanist worldview, and the necessity of hard work--all in the midst of a truly entertaining adventure.

Apparently the next series, The Circle Opens, is even better. omg how can this beeee? show less

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