The Will of the Empress (Circle Reforged #1)
Summary:
Sandry, Daja, Briar, and Tris, are older now and back together again, in an exciting and much-awaited, stand-alone novel by everyone's favorite mage, Tamora Pierce.
For years the Empress of Namorn has pressed her young cousin, Lady Sandrilene fa Toren, to visit her vast lands within the Empire's borders. Sandry has avoided the invitation for as long as it was possible. Now Sandry has agreed to pay that overdue visit. Sandry's uncle promises guards to accompany her. But they're hardly a group of warriors! They're her old friends from Winding Circle: Daja, Tris, and Briar. Sandry hardly knows them now. They've grown up and grown apart. Sandry isn't sure they'll ever find their old connection again - or if she even wants them to. (Summary and cover courtesy of goodreads.com)
Review:
This book was very fun to go back and revisit the Circle of Magic characters, but I found them very angst-filled in this book. For four individuals who were supposedly extremely mature, they seemed to have a poor sense of how to act when you’ve grown apart from someone. I understand why it was used as part of the series, yet I still found that aspect of the book peeved me a little that it was “SO SURPRISING”.
Seeing Sandry try to get off her high horse also made me wince a bit. Since I read through the series straight through, I didn’t remember he being such a noble in her other books compared to this one. Perhaps I am overly harsh, but I wanted to believe that Sandry is better than she came off to be at times. All that being said, the emotional development and interpersonal reactions I felt were fairly realistic and I enjoyed seeing how it all came to be. Most of the story was predictable, but still enjoyed nonetheless.
Warning: Contains violence.
Rating: 4 stars!
Who should read it? Fans of the overall Circle of Magic stories or else it will be very confusing.
Want to read the whole series?
Battle Magic (Circle Reforged #3)