Tamora Pierce is a lover of strong female role models and most of her books are aimed towards young women ages 8 - 16. The Tricksters Duology is aimed at an older audience however (I'd say 14 to 30) due to it's size and complexity and darker themes. This series is relatively wholesome series, age recommendation is a loose thing. If you have a junior younger than 8 who churns through books, then by all means get them to read some of Pierces work. Though there are plenty of fighting scenes and wars so it may also appeal to young men out there too. So Steemians! If you enjoy some light reading or have some young adults and would like to give some wholesome reading, this is for you.

Tricksters Choice

This book is set about a year and a half after the end of the Protector of the small series and 24 year after the end of the Song of the Lioness series. We are introduced to Aly (Alianne), the 17 year old daughter of Alanna the Lioness, Champion to the King and Baron George Cooper, ex-master thief and present day spy master to the realms of Tortall.

Aly has her mothers copper hair and finely built nose but most of her other features she inherited from her father. Hazel eyes, expressive eyes and mouth and she has the Sight but where her father could detect lies, detect magic and had a small amount of precognition (more along the lines of his hunches are usually right), Aly on the other hand has taken her fathers ability and amped it up with help from the strong magical blood from her mothers linage. Aly can see magic and read magical signs and know what they do, can detect mages, how strong they are and what proficiencies they have, detect lies, see in the dark, see things clearly that are very far away or see small things in high detail.

Having taken largely after her father, she also has been basically trained by him since birth. As a child she treated her training like a game. Learning how to write and crack codes and decipher messages and pick locks and read magic symbols etc. Now that she's full grown and has often helped her father recruit and train spies for the realm but otherwise she is idle. Her parents are after her to make something of herself, all she wants is to be a spy, an agent out in the field, and it's the one thing her parents will never let her be.

in order to escape the suffocating control of her mother Aly goes sailing intending to go to Port Legann and return in a week or so once her mother no longer has it in her head than she can force her daughter down a different path in life. Only problem is Aly gets caught by pirates and taken to the copper isles to be sold as a slave. At this point she gets approached by Kyprioth, the trickster god for a boon. Keep a particular family alive over summer and Aly will be returned safely and the god will convince her father to let her be a field agent. Aly accepts and finds herself a pawn of prophecy in the middle of a quagmire of political intrigue in a country ruled by monarchs renowned for being equal parts paranoid, cruel and insane.

Thoughts

Out of all of the Tortall series, these two books are the most aimed at adults. The themes are a darker and the writing style more aimed towards an older audience. The second book (Tricksters Queen) even has more heated romance scenes than other books (still relatively child friendly but kissing is described in more detail and removal of clothes is mentioned but nothing of whats underneath in mentioned or described and the scene promptly skips to the next day)

This duology is exemplary. The detail is gorgeous, the plot is detailed and beautiful. Unlike many of Pierces other off-shoots this does not feel like a tribute to the fans. Even if you've never read any of the other books of Tortall this book is very readable, the only time you'd ever feel like you're missing something is the few times Aly thinks/dreams about her extended foster family consisting of Daine and Numair from the Immortals series, which is not often.

If anyone were to ask me what books I would suggest that show Pierces best work, it would be these two books (and possibly the Numair Chronicles pending on what the next book is like once released). Pierce writes espionage work really well.

Finale

I give this a 9.4/10, it's an amazing read. I've read these books literally DOZENS of times and it still makes me laugh and weep and dream.