-
 The Song of the Lioness quartet (ALANNA: THE FIRST
ADVENTURE, IN THE HAND OF THE GODDESS, THE WOMAN WHO RIDES LIKE A MAN, and
LIONESS RAMPANT)
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The Immortals quartet (WILD MAGIC, WOLFSPEAKER, THE
EMPEROR MAGE, and THE REALMS OF THE GODS)
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 The Circle of Magic quartet (SANDRY'S BOOK, TRIS'S
BOOK, DAJA'S BOOK, and BRIAR'S BOOK)
-
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The Circle Opens quartet (MAGIC STEPS, STREET
MAGIC, COLD FIRE, and SHATTERGLASS)
-
-
-
YOUNG WARRIORS (anthology co-edited by Tamora Pierce)
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(updated with audiobook link 11-21-07!) Beka Cooper: A Tortall
Legend (three books set in Tortall Universe 200 years before Song of
the Lioness - TERRIER, BLOODHOUND, ELKHOUND)
-
(updated with Audible.com link 11-11-07!)
MELTING STONES (original novel for audiobook, set in
Circle Universe)
  The Song of the Lioness quartet:
This story, all four
books, is about the making of a hero. It's also about a very stubborn girl.
Alanna of Trebond wants to be a knight of the realm of Tortall, in a time when
girls are forbidden to be warriors. Rather than give up her dream, she and her
brother--who wants to be a mage, not a knight--switch places. She becomes Alan;
Thom becomes a student wizard in the school where she would have learned to be a
lady. The quartet is about her struggle to achieve her goals and to master
weapons, combat, polite behavior, her magic, her temper, and even her own heart.
It is about friendships--with the heir to the throne, the King of Thieves, a
wise and kindly knight--and her long struggle against a powerful enemy mage. She
sees battle as a squire and as a knight, lives among desert people and tries to
rescue an independent princess. Singled out by a goddess, accompanied by a
semi-divine cat with firm opinions, somehow she survives her many adventures to
become a most unlikely legend. (Click here to read a sample from ALANNA: THE FIRST
ADVENTURE.)
  The Immortals quartet: All the orphaned Daine wants
when she comes to Tortall is a job. What she finds is magic in many forms, an
ongoing war with creatures from legends and nightmares, a new home and,
eventually, her unknown father. Hired by the Queen's Riders to help with their
horses, she learns her knack with animals is a rare magic which helps her to
communicate with the animal kingdom. With that discovery she becomes the
student--then friend and sometimes protector--of the great mage Numair. He also
helps her to develop her second magical skill, the ability to sense the presence
of the immortals, fabled creatures who have come to mortal lands after a long
imprisonment. All these changes in Daine's life bring her new human friends as
well as animal ones: Tortall's rulers, Alanna the Lioness, the heir to the
throne of imperial Carthak, a pygmy marmoset, and the badger god. Often she
comes into contact--and sometimes conflict--with Stormwings--half human, half
steel birds; dragons; spidrens--giant furred spiders with human heads and an
appetite for human flesh; griffins; and the clawed, winged horses called
hurroks. Daine is kept on the move as she grows into adulthood and her power,
coming to terms with her world and her strange, mixed parentage. (Click here to
read a sample from WILD MAGIC. Click here to read a deleted scene involving
Daine and a camel from THE EMPEROR MAGE.)
  The Circle of Magic quartet: Set in a different universe from the Lioness and Immortals
books, this quartet centers around four unusual young mages. Sandry, a noble
whose parents died recently, has power with thread, from spinning and weaving to
simple knot-tying. Daja, a Trader, is the only survivor of a shipwreck in which
her family drowned. Declared to be bad luck and banned from life with other
Traders, she is free to learn to work metals and, through metal, to work magic.
Tris, the merchant's daughter, is no orphan, but her family doesn't want her.
Briar is a street rat, a thief and convict. Only at the temple city of Winding
Circle does he learn that his strange love of growing things is more than a need
to garden. Brought together in a house inside the temple city's walls, watched
over by the mages Lark, Rosethorn, Frostpine and Niko, the four struggle to be
friends, to exercise their magic, and to survive. Each book centers on one of
the four, but make no mistake: they are bound tightly together, and the events
that affect each of them also strengthen their connections to one another.
 The Protector of the Small
quartet: This is the tale of
Keladry of Mindelan, a girl who wants just one thing: to copy the feat of her
hero Alanna the Lioness, and win her knight's shield. She is now old enough to
be a page, and the King has decreed that any nobly-born girl with her parents'
consent can enter the palace school. Kel has that permission, as well as the
warnings of her parents and older brothers that she will not exactly be welcomed
in her new life. They are right, but she means to succeed. To stop Kel in her
tracks, the training master, Lord Wyldon of Cavall, insists that she be placed
on probation. FIRST TEST is the story of Kel's probationary year. (Click here to
read a sample from the first volume, FIRST TEST.)
 PAGE, the second Protector book, details Kel's remaining
years as a page. Just because she survived her first year doesn't mean that
everyone now loves and accepts her. She has to deal with that, among other
things. What other things? you ask. Try a stray dog who doesn't listen when Kel
says "No." Try a maidservant who squeaks with dismay every time Kel picks up a
weapon. Try a company of bandits that isn't supposed to be there. Try new boys
and changes in her own body. And never forget Kel's fear of heights. When Lord
Wyldon sends her out to climb trees, walls, and cliffs, is he doing it because
he wants to cure her of her fear, or drive her away from the palace? (Click here
to read a sample from the second volume, PAGE.)
 SQUIRE, the third Protector book, describes Kel's next
four years. Her new knight-master is as different from Lord Wyldon as a man can
be. He introduces Kel to a new way of life, one that's as much fun as it is hard
work. He not only allows her to carry and use her Yamani glaive, but he helps
her to take her skill at jousting to the next level, one that introduces
Tortall's young knights and squires to a formidable new force on the tournament
field. She has the care of a very different new foundling, as well as matters of
the heart to consider. Kel meets a wide panorama of new faces, including the
Yamani princess Shinkokami and her ladies, a very troubled squire, a baby
griffin, and a metal creation like nothing she has ever seen before. Old friends
and foes appear: Neal of Queenscove, Cleon of Kennan, Owen of Jesslaw, and the
puzzling Joren of Stone Mountain. Through it all, Kel never allows herself to
forget what awaits her after her night-long vigil in Midwinter of her fourth
year as a squire: the Chamber of the Ordeal.
When I handed in the first draft of SQUIRE, I was convinced I
was doomed. American publishers have been strapping writers for teenagers to the
200-page-manuscript length since I began to publish books, and my first draft
was nearly twice as long. Lo! comes Mallory, my Random House editrix, like a
tutelary angel dressed in tango shoes, to graciously gift me with one hundred
more manuscript pages (which translates into about 350 pages of typeset
book). I am saved, and here's a sample. For those of you who attended my
readings in fall 2000/spring 2001, this is a new segment, so you won't be bored.
(Click here to read a sample from the third volume, SQUIRE.)
 LADY KNIGHT, the fourth Protector book, describes Kel's
first appearance as a knight of the realm. War with Scanra is declared at last
during the book, and Kel finds herself in charge of not a border post or even a
portion of the army, but of a refugee camp, placed there by her district
commander, Lord Wyldon. She's certain that he does this to keep her out of the
fighting, but she also knows that these people, torn from their homes, robbed of
their wealth and self-respect, are her responsibility. She must feed them, house
them, and keep them safe from harm, on a piece of ground that is far too close
to the Scanran border. She will have help, in the shape of her old friends Neal
and Merric, the horses Peachblossom and Hoshi, the dog Jump and her personal
sparrow flock, but also from as mixed a brew of people as ever came together at
one point: the Wildmage called Daine; Daine's lover, the great mage Numair;
Neal's own father, Duke Baird of Queenscove; Kel's former knight-master Raoul of
Goldenlake and Malorie's Peak, and men of the King's Own, including Kel's friend
Sergeant Domitan of Masbolle; convict soldiers, who have been given the choice
to fight in the army or to die at hard labor; several hundred refugees who have
gotten too many empty promises from nobles; smugglers, and a stolid, unusual boy
named Tobe. (Click here to read samples from the fourth volume, LADY KNIGHT.)
While Kel struggles with her responsibilities and the urge
simply to abandon the camp and find a real fight, another obligation
hangs over her. Tied to the camp, she cannot pursue the task set for her by the
Chamber of the Ordeal: to find and destroy the mage who is using foul magic to
create the rat-like, swift-moving, deadly metallic things known to the
Tortallans as "killing devices." As the summer wears on and the war intensifies,
events move to put a perverted mage and his conscienceless war-leader in Kel's
path, to test her resolve and find out if she is truly worthy of her shield.
 The Circle Opens
quartet: This quartet picks up the lives of
Sandry, Briar, Daja and Tris four years after the events of The Circle of
Magic quartet. The four are out on their own for the first time. The first
book, MAGIC STEPS, is about Sandry. She's living at Duke's Citadel, following
the duke's heart attack six weeks before the book opens. Her three friends have
left Winding Circle for a time in the company of their teachers, leaving Sandry
and Lark on their own. Now Sandry discovers Pasco Acalon, the son and grandson
of two cop families (known as "harriers" in Summersea). Pasco's twelve. He knows
he would rather dance than do anything else; he also knows that when he is old
enough, he is expected to become a harrier like his parents, and sisters, and
cousins, and grandparents.... What he does not know is what Sandry can see
the first time she watches him dance: Pasco has magic, magic that he works by
dancing.
Like many people before him, Pasco will learn how easy it is to
tell Lady Sandrilene fa Toren "no" when she says in her softly earnest way, "I
really must insist." And both of them will learn what magic can do, as ruthless
assassins cloaked in unknown power begin to kill off one of Summersea's richest
families--adults and children alike. (Click here to read a sample from the first
volume, MAGIC
STEPS.)
 STREET MAGIC is the second book of The Circle Opens, one
that revolves around Briar and his first mage-student, a stubborn, wily street
girl named Evvy. Briar meets her in Chammur, a city far to the west of Emelan, a
stop on his and Rosethorn's journey east. Briar's cruising one of the city's
biggest markets when he sees a girl polishing stones and crystals, causing their
innate magic that's in them to flare. She runs when Briar asks her how she does
it. When Briar tells Rosethorn, he discovers an unpleasant fact of mage life:
unless he can find another stone mage to teach Evvy, he must instruct her in the
basics. Of course, to teach her or introduce her to the only stone mage in
Chammur, Briar first must catch her. Evvy, a former slave and veteran street
kid, knows Chammur and its secrets very well.
Soon Evvy and Briar are at odds with a local street gang, one
which has been adopted by a noblewoman who wants her gang to be the most
important in the city. To that end the Lady will scheme for them, give them
weapons, and exert herself to get control of Evvy--as a stone mage the girl will
be able to find hidden gems in houses the gang means to rob. In dealing with
her, the gang itself, and Chammur's other stone mage, Briar is forced to review
what he wants from life, and how he wants himself, and his exasperating new
student, to live. (Click here to read a sample from the second volume, STREET MAGIC.) (Click here to read
Tammy's note regarding continuity following STREET MAGIC, and before
THE WILL OF THE EMPRESS: The Circle Reforged and
MELTING STONES.)
 COLD FIRE is the third book of The Circle Opens quartet.
In it, Daja and Frostpine have journeyed to Namorn in the far north, learning
different techniques of metal-working along the way. Namorn is a choice
Frostpine bitterly regrets once winter sets in, but at least they are
comfortably housed with two old friends of his and their children. Daja is the
one to discover there is undetected magic in the Bancanor household. Unlike
Briar and Sandry, Daja has no trouble finding teachers for the Bancanors' twin
daughters, Niamara (Nia), whose magic is with carpentry and woodwork, and
Jorality (Jory), whose magic is with cooking, both fairly common forms of magic.
The problem is that because the twins' new teachers run large, noisy shops, Daja
gets to teach them the meditation that is the key to their control over their
magic. As she struggles with that, she also makes friends with a local hero,
Bennat Ladradun. After losing his wife and children in one of the city's many
fires, Ben goes to an expert in fire to learn how it works and how to fight it.
Now he's home, teaching what he's learned to fire brigades on Kugisko's many
islands. He and Daja like each other from the start, which makes them natural
allies when they are brought together at a fire that results from an act of
arson. Other fires come after it, with heartbreaking results. Daja struggles to
help Ben fight the blazes even as she teaches the twins to meditate, works to
shape fireproof gloves for Ben (with an eye to making a complete living metal
suit for him by spring), and learns to skate. As the arsonist's fires become
more serious and deadly, Daja is plunged into the heart of a search for a
monster. (Click here to read a sample from the third volume, COLD FIRE.)
 SHATTERGLASS is the fourth book of The Circle Opens
quartet. Here, Tris and Niko have journeyed far to the south, to the city of Tharios, famed for
its glassmakers and the site of a conference on visionary magics which Niko is to attend. From
the very beginning Tris is pitchforked into an alien culture, where an entire group of people
known as the prathmuni who perform the city's dirtiest work are socially invisible,
and where death is regarded as pollution which must be erased as soon as it's discovered. This
makes it very hard for people to investigate when a serial killer begins to kill the entertainers
who live and work in the district called Khapik, leaving their bodies in steadily more visible
places. The killer has claimed five victims already when Tris encounters Kethlun Warder, a
journeyman glassmaker from Namorn who has fled south to reclaim his life. A year before Keth
was hit by lightning, half-crippling him and making him clumsy with his craft. It is Tris who
informs him that he is now a mage, on the day his attempt to blow glass draws in magic from
all around him to produce a living glass dragon. After a slight misunderstanding--Keth tries to
kill the dragon with metal tongs; Tris shocks him with a bit of lightning to stop him--Keth
realizes that this strange girl has just explained why he's been unable to do good work for the
past year. He goes in search of a glass mage to teach him his craft, only to be told that since
his glass magic is infused with lightning, which makes it both stronger and more unpredictable.
Fortunately, the mage Niko who Keth meets at this point reassures Keth that there is in fact a
rare, living master of lightning magic in Tharios. Niko takes him to meet the mage who is to
be his new teacher, who is none other than the crotchety girl he disagreed with so
vehemently.
One of Keth's accidents with glass blowing is a globe that, when the
lightning that fills it clears, holds within it a newly murdered entertainer. This discovery brings
Keth and Tris into the orbit of Dema, a police mage who has been assigned to the killings.
Together the three of them work with Keth's magic, racing the clock in the attempt to create a
clear globe that will show them not the killer's work, but the killer's face.
(Click here to read a sample from the fourth volume, SHATTERGLASS.) (Click here for a SHATTERGLASS Glossary.)
 TRICKSTER'S CHOICE: Alianne is the sixteen-year old daughter of Tortall's legendary lady knight, Alanna the Lioness.
Her mother isn't the only legend in Aly's life--from her adopted aunt Daine, a demi-goddess and
mage, to her godfather, the king of Tortall, Aly lives among legends and wonders. She takes
them in stride. What she cannot accept is the fact that her parents refuse to allow her the career
she's been raised to by her father, that of a spy (Mom says, "not another spy in the family;"
Dad says, "not my little girl!"). Aly's had enough. If her parents won't let her be a spy, then
at least she means to have some fun. She gets more than she expected when she sails straight
into a pirate fleet. The pirates capture her and sell her as a slave to the noble Balitang family
in the Copper Isles.
It is with the Balitangs that Aly's great adventure begins, courtesy of the trickster god of the
Isles, a jaunty fellow named Kyprioth. Once ruler of the Isles, he lost his throne to Mithros and
the Great Mother Goddess when the governing luarin, or whites, conquered the raka people of
the Isles three hundred years before. Now he has a plan to re-take the Isles with the help of the
raka and their luarin friends. For his plan to work, he needs the last two daughters of the old
line of raka queens to stay alive when they are exiled, along with their father, step-mother, step-sister, and step-brother to a small and distant estate on the northernmost Isle. Kyprioth makes
Aly a wager. If she can keep her master's children alive during their summer in exile,
safeguarding them from the dangers that exist for a family out of royal favor, Kyprioth will not
only return her to her home, but persuade her father to let her be a spy. If Aly fails, she owes
the god a year's service, if she is alive to pay the debt. Aly takes the wager.
It will be in the highlands on Lombyn Isle that Aly learns of the raka's long struggle for freedom
and of the mad decisions made by the present ruling family. There she will learn to respect the
Balitang children and their parents and to admire the conspirators who mean to make the oldest
daughter, Saraiyu, the first raka queen in three centuries. She will encounter the charming,
ruthless Prince Rubinyan, and make the acquaintance of a very unusual crow. She thinks she
is immune to passion and that her magical Sight, inherited from her father and strengthened by
her mother's blood, will help to warn her of any trouble. She does not understand that
Kyprioth's plans for her are not what he says they are, or that more than one
kind of peril awaits a slave girl who could walk away from her slavery at any
time, if she wished to. Where will her loyalties be at summer's end--if she's
alive? (Click here to read a sample from
TRICKSTER'S CHOICE)
 TRICKSTER'S QUEEN:
In the spring after the events of TRICKSTER'S CHOICE, Aly and the Balitangs return to the
capital of Rajmuat, to drastically different lives. Young Elsren Balitang is now heir to King
Dunevon; both boys are five years old. Mequen's dragon great-aunt Nuritin has established
herself in the Balitang townhouse to guide Winnamine, Sarai, and Dove on their new life at
court, establishing alliances for Elsren. The outer isles are showing signs of revolt, as is
Rajmuat itself. Ulasim, the head footman, now moves into his own as the farsighted general
of the rebellion, with Fesgao as his warchief, Chenaol as armorer, and Ochobu and her fellow
mage Ysul coordinating the magical side of the struggle.
At the heart of it all is Aly, now coordinating her own trained spies as they embark on a
program of psychological warfare and sabotage in the capital and the palace. Aly's partially
romantic relationship with Nawat, the former crow, is also in trouble. He needs work to keep
him busy, but there is little demand for a fletcher in the city, and Aly continues to see his
usefulness primarily in crow terms. The trickster god Kyprioth is there, too, stirring things up,
trying to heighten the rebels' progress before his fellow gods Mithros and the Great Mother can
return to put a halt to his comeback.
As the rebellion builds, new players come Aly's way. First there is the man called Topabaw,
for years the master of the Isles' spies and the bogeyman with which luarin and raka nursemaids
alike threaten their charges if they misbehave. Aly soon comes to see that for the raka rebels
and their co-conspirators to take her city, she must first destroy Topabaw, who everyone
believes is indestructible. She also finds another potential foe in the captain of King Dunevon's
personal guards, a big, personable fellow named Taybur Sibigat, who realizes Aly is up to
something the moment he lays eyes on her. Aunt Nuritin proves to be more than just a fierce
chaperon. There are new additions to Aly's pack of spies. And old friends, or rather, new
incarnations of old friends come into the picture when Aly receives a delightful present from her
aunt: a collection of the small, glob-like creatures called darkings, who played such a pivotal
role in THE REALMS OF THE GODS. As they are quick to tell her, what one of them knows,
they all know.
The Balitang ladies are busy, too. Dove, tired of waiting for an invitation, includes herself in
a meeting of the heads of the raka rebellion, and goes right to work helping to
smooth her sister's path to the throne. Sarai still is not aware of the rebellion's purpose. She only knows
that people turn out to see her whenever she rides with her noble friends and with her family.
Both they and Winnamine are treading very carefully at court, where King Dunevon's regents
are on the alert for any challenge to their power, and growing tired of kowtowing to their five-year-old charge. They will stop at nothing to ensure their grip on power in the Isles, unless the raka prophecy is true at last, and the Twice-Royal Queen is ready to return rule to the native
people of the Isles.
Aly, her friends, and her foes, have a long, complex struggle before them as
they encounter success, failure, and sudden surprises, because no one person, or
god, can control everything everywhere throughout the Isles. There are all
kinds of mistakes to be made, allegiances to develop, and battles to endure
until the world knows, once and for all, who will be the Trickster's Queen. (Click here
to read a sample from TRICKSTER'S QUEEN).
 THE WILL OF THE EMPRESS: The Circle
Reforged: Slowly Daja, Tris, and Briar return to Summersea and Sandry,
but they are not the carefree youngsters they were when they left to travel with
their teachers. They have things they don't really want to share with the others
in their old mental link. Sandry, trying to regain their old closeness, feels
rejected and angry: she feels punished. With their refusal to renew their old
ties bitter in her mind, she can't believe it when they agree to Duke Vedris's
request that they accompany Sandry on a long-overdue visits to the lands and
family that Sandry has in Namorn.
The duke is right to worry about Sandry's trip to the north.
Empress Berenene of Namorn does not like it that any of the income from the vast
Landreg estates has been leaving Namorn to fill Sandry's pockets. She wants that
money--and her marriageable young cousin--to stay in Namorn, where Berenene can
manipulate both for the enrichment of her throne. Moreover, when she sees how
powerful Sandry's three young mage friends are, Berenene decides that she wants
them to stay as well. To convince the four young people to stay, the wily,
beautiful and powerful empress has an empire full of tricks: great mages who can
trap less powerful ones, handsome young men and women devoted to her who will
court whoever she orders them to, tax laws to beggar people who look to Sandry
for help, family ties like Sandry's cousin Ambros and his family, greenhouses
and gardens beautiful enough to enchant even the most hard-hearted of garden
mages. She is willing to offer Briar, Tris, and Daja money and power to serve
her. She is intelligent, and she has a will of steel.
What can four eighteen-year-olds do against her? It is not as if they are
even strong at this point: Tris is besieged by visions, Sandry by lovers, Daja
by love, Briar by horrific dreams from the last two years. They have people to
look after, a madman, and Sandry's new maid and her children. How can they
possibly defy imperial Berenene and her powerful servants? (Click here to read a
sample from THE WILL OF THE EMPRESS: The Circle
Reforged).
|
After Briar, Evvy, and Rosethorn leave Chammur (STREET
MAGIC), they got to Yanjing and after that, Gyongxe, first home of the
Living Circle temples, where they are caught up in the trauma of conquest on
a grand scale. Those events will be the subject of the next Circle
book about any of the original four (currently untitled).
Once Briar, Evvy, and Rosethorn return to Emelan, Briar goes to Namorn with
Sandry, Daja, and Tris (THE WILL OF THE EMPRESS:
The Circle Reforged). Evvy lives at Discipline. When Rosethorn is
called to investigate tree die-off on one of the Battle Islands, she takes
Evvy with her. What happens then is the subject of
MELTING STONES, which will be published first as an audio book, then
shortly after as a paper one. That will be the first book about any of the
four's students.
I hope that straightens out the time line. The time line goes:
Yanjing
Summersea
Namorn -- Battle Islands
as in, THE WILL OF THE EMPRESS: The Circle Reforged and MELTING
STONES happen roughly in the same time period.
- Tamora Pierce |
 YOUNG WARRIORS (Random House
hardcover, October 11, 2005; paperback October 24, 2006):
An anthology co-edited by Tamora Pierce and Josepha Sherman, with a theme of
warriors in their teens, in different times and different places. With stories
by Holly Black, Doranna Durgin, Esther Friesner, Brent Hartinger, Laura Ann
Gilman, Janis Ian, Lesley McBain, Tamora Pierce, Mike Resnick, Bruce Holland
Rogers, S.M.
and Janet Stirling, and Pamela F. Service (to see all authors and story
titles, click here).
 Beka Cooper: A Tortall Legend
(first book, TERRIER - Random House hardcover, October, 2006; paperback
Fall 2007): The
Beka Cooper Trilogy is the story of Rebakah Cooper, a young Tortallan
woman (she is 16 when the trilogy begins) born two centuries before Alanna,
Daine, Kel, and Aly. Beka has dreamed of being a Provost’s Guard—a
policewoman—half of her life. She was born in the capital’s worst slum, the
Cesspool, and lived there for eight years, the oldest child of an herbalist
with terrible taste in men. The last one is a criminal, a member of a gang
that is terrorizing the wealthy citizens of Corus. When he beats and robs
Beka’s mother and abandons her, the 8-year-old sees her chance for revenge.
She tracks the man to his gang’s hiding place, then reports it to the Lord
Provost himself, Gershom of Haryse. She doesn’t know it, but Gershom’s
career as Lord Provost was hanging by a thread as a result of his inability
to capture this gang. With his career restored, Gershom repays his debt to
the young slum girl by taking her entire family into his household to be
educated and reared to work in a higher income bracket than they would ever
have achieved in the Cesspool. In Beka he has found someone who loves the
work of the Provost’s Guard as much as he does. She becomes his particular
protégée,
running his errands, hearing his stories, running messages between the
different Guard stations, or “Kennels,” and getting his sponsorship into the
school for Guards, or as they’re known on the streets, “Dogs.”
The first book, TERRIER, is the story of Beka’s first year on active duty,
where she is a “Puppy,” a trainee. She has been assigned to a pair of
senior Dogs, Mattes Tunstall and Clary Goodwin, two of the best in the Lower
City Kennel District. Tunstall is a former hillman, easygoing and funny
until he is swept up by combat fever. Goodwin is small, tough, and mean, a
hard woman who makes it very plain from the start that she never asked for a
Puppy, she does not want a Puppy, and she will not look after a Puppy. She
and Tunstall have not had a Puppy to train in their long years as partners,
and they find it as much a learning experience as Beka does. The three
partners soon find they can learn a great deal from each other. For one
thing, Beka has a very unusual feline companion, the purple-eyed cat named
Pounce. When he feels like it, Pounce can speak and make himself understood
by human beings. He also is far more intelligent than the ordinary cat.
Beka has had four years to get used to this, but Goodwin and Tunstall need
to adjust. Beka can also hear the voices of the restless ghosts who ride
the backs of the city’s pigeons, and hear the conversations picked up by the
city’s permanent dust spinners, or whirlwinds. It is these messengers who
help Beka to learn that someone is hiring work crews to dig in Lower City
cellars—and then murdering the entire crews when the job is done, only to go
on and hire new crews. These informants also help Beka to discover that
someone is kidnapping the children of the poor for the single precious item
their families own. That person returns the child when the parents pay up.
When they don’t, the child vanishes, or dies. Now Beka has to persuade her
partners that she knows what she’s talking about, and that the lives of the
desperately poor are worth the efforts of the finest of the Provost’s Dogs.
(Click here to read a sample from
TERRIER)
In BLOODHOUND, Beka is now an official Dog, one who is having trouble keeping a
partner. After a summer of iffy weather, the harvest is not as good as the
city’s poor hope. Worse, Beka’s friend Tansy brings word to her friends
that false silver coins, called “coles,” are appearing in the city’s
markets. When Beka and the Dogs of Jane Street Kennel investigate, they
learn that the coles appear to be distributed through gambling, and that
they are coming from the hands of gamblers who have arrived in Corus from
Port Caynn. Lord Gershom organizes a big, but secret hunt. A country’s
economy hangs on its silver. If word gets out that there are fake silver
coins in the money stream, prices will skyrocket. Already bread prices have
skyrocketed, sparking a riot in the city’s Nightmarket. Beka, in the
meantime, has run afoul of a nobleman’s son. To get her away from him,
Gershom sends her and Goodwin to Port Caynn to investigate where these coles,
and the silver that goes into them, are coming from. The counterfeiters
could be anyone, including friends and even lovers.
In ELKHOUND, Beka and her friends will face their greatest and most important
challenge ever when the young heir to the kingdom vanishes. They will be
sent out of Corus on a trail that appears and disappears, following a
twisting road throughout Tortall. It will be her greatest Hunt—if she can
survive the very powerful people who do not want her to succeed in her goal.
 MELTING STONES (Full
Cast Audio, distributed in US through Harcourt Children's Books and via
download on
Audible.com, Bruce Coville, ed.; October 2007):
Residents on one of the Battle Islands south of Emelan have sent a call for help to Winding
Circle temple: their plants and trees and the animals who live around them are dying off in
patches, for no reason that they can work out. From Winding Circle come two familiar figures:
prickly green mage Rosethorn, whose plant magic will help her to decipher what's ailing the
plant life on the island, and Briar's former student, the obstreperous stone mage Evumeimei, or
Evvy, who is eager to travel once more. With them comes the eager and nervous Dedicate
Initiate Myrrhtide, who will help them to communicate with Winding Circle should they need
to, and the companion Evvy met while she, Rosethorn, and her former teacher Briar were
traveling in distant Yanjing, Luvo, a being who is best described as a walking, intelligent rock. Though supposedly Evvy and Luvo are simply along for the ride, they are pulled into the
island's mystery when Evvy is caught up by the wild spirits loose in an immense bubble of
molten rock quite close to the surface of the island. What Evvy, Luvo, Rosethorn, and the
people of the island can do in the face of a fast-approaching volcano will be anyone's guess.
Can they evacuate the island? Or worse--will they try to shift a volcano?
MELTING STONES will be a little different for me. Its first appearance will be as an audio
book, recorded with a full cast and produced by the wonder-makers at Full Cast Audio (who
brought you the full cast audio book versions of The Circle of Magic, with company president
Bruce Coville as Niko). (Click here to read
the press release announcing MELTING STONES' audiobook publication.) Bruce, one of the top writers of books for intermediate readers (THE
MONSTER'S RING, MY TEACHER IS AN ALIEN, THE GHOST IN THE THIRD ROW,
THE SONG OF THE WANDERER, and many more books), will be my editor for this audio
book. I'm looking forward to it: when I wrote the short story "Elder Brother" for the anthology
HALF HUMAN, it was Bruce's editing that helped me to create what I think is the best short
story I have written to date. I know with him to help me shape MELTING STONES, I'll have
an audio book I can be proud of, and Bruce can have many more entries for the "Tammy Pierce
is a Potty Mouth" CD he claims to be putting together! |
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