Which was her perfect match and who would she end up with? (Perfect for Hunger Games fans who wouldn’t mind fantasy) Unfortunately, the relationship issues in the book also make it hard to recommend. When I read them the first time, the love triangle between Alanna, Jonathan and George made me charge through the series. The last two books chronicle her adventures during the first couple years of her knighthood as she saves numerous people and kingdoms. The first two books follow her years at school as she becomes a knight and makes friends with Jonathan, the crown prince, and George, the disreputable but loyal King of Rogues. Though the obstacles and challenges she faces as the smallest and weakest page are many, her stubborn dedication pays off and she rises through the ranks. However, only boys can become knights, and in order to realize her dream, Alanna must disguise herself as a male, putting herself at great risk. She convinces Thom to switch places, and the two disguise themselves and slip away from their absent-minded father – Alanna to knight school, and Thom to the convent where he will learn to be a magician. I put them on my shelf for later… and it turned out to be only two weeks later that I decided to read them as a present to myself.Īlanna of Trebond is about eleven when the first book starts, and she is about to be sent off to a convent to learn how to be a lady her twin brother Thom is to be schooled as a page, then a squire, then a knight for the realm of Tortall.

Recently I found most of this series in a bargain-bin at my local library – they were clearing them out, shame on them! Their loss was my gain and for about $1.50 I had three quarters of the series. At that point, I would have happily joined the excited teens clutching books and eager to see Ms. I kind of dismissed it as fluff at the time, but was eventually persuaded by a co-worker to pick up the series a few years later (at another bookstore). I forget that these are people who enjoy escapist fiction for a reason).

Having never heard of her, I was mildly amused to see dozens of teenage (and some post-teenage) girls pack in to see a mild-mannered middle age woman discuss a series of fantasy books she had written (I don’t know why, but I always expect fantasy authors to look more dramatic, or toned.

Years ago when I was working at a bookstore as a cashier, I worked an in-store event where she appeared. In order, the books are: Alanna, In the Hands of the Goddess, The Woman Who Rides Like a Man, and Lioness Rampant. This is one of my old favourites – the Alanna quartet by Tamora Pierce.

Alanna by Tamora Pierce