THE WILL OF THE EMPRESS
Tamora Pierce
Scholastic Press
Fantasy
ISBN: 0439441714
560 pages

• Read an Excerpt
• Author Interview -- November 8, 2005

The battle between good and evil always makes for a good tale. When the good has to be a bit evil to overcome the meanest of all evils, a ring of truth vibrates in the story. How can a fantasy writer who deals in the realms of manufactured worlds, synthesized words, and make-believe creatures weave the sound of truth into a novel? The author must behave like Tamora Pierce in her new work THE WILL OF THE EMPRESS.

When I met with Pierce recently, I spoke with her for many hours and I listened to her talk to others for several more hours. Regardless of the question, the story, or the venue, she manages to boil everything down to one concept: we all have an intrinsic power deep inside our beings and we are obligated to engage that power for the benefit of the whole. We are each endowed with a sort of spiritual prowess as well as the choice to use that energy for the protection of ourselves and our worlds.  Protection from what, you ask? We must protect ourselves and others from those who would choose to exercise their powers for personal gratification, greed, and harm.

Tamora Pierce believes that no one should suffer the injustices or the selfish will of the mean-spirited in this world or in the world she has created for her beloved teenage mages --- Sandry, Tris, Daja and Briar. Three girls and a young man whose magical powers were forged together when they were 13 years old have joined again after years of independence and adventurous study. Even though maturity and distance has the young friends unfamiliar with each other at first, upon reaching the same destination in the new home of Daja, they quickly merge their talents and become a magical force once again.

Their common enemy is Sandry's cousin, Berenene dor Ocmore, empress of Namorn, who wishes the four mages to reside in Namorn and become her pawns, thereby adding to the mystery and mastery of her court. What the four do not know is that as they agree to visit the empress and greet her for the first time, she has been gathering reports from her spies for the last seventeen years that have given Berenene specific and outlandish knowledge about them all. She is aware of their magic and their weaknesses, and plans to turn their individual flaws into the very chains she will use to hold them captive in her court.

Berenene underestimates the potency of the four friends, however, as they argue like teens, keep secrets from each other like adults, and rekindle their union like an explosion in the universe to recreate themselves as a masterful force for good. Even the wily mages of the empress are no match for the Circle of Magic once it is reforged.

Fast-paced and action-filled, THE WILL OF THE EMPRESS is sure to entertain readers of all ages.

   --- Reviewed by Joy Held

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