I think I actually finished the second Circle of Magic book, Tris’s Book (Young Adult 251 pages) by Tamora Pierce on Thursday. I meant to write up the book review then, but I think it was late and I was dealing with some work-related information that was extremely unexpected and took me off-guard.

“Earthquake damage leaves Winding Circle vulnerable to pirate attack, so everyone – including the young mages-in-training Tris, Briar, Daja, and Sandry – is working to strengthen the community’s defenses. When Tris’s cousin Aymery comes to visit, he advises the ‘weather witch’ to return to the family that exiled her, but she doesn’t wish to leave her friends to face the threat without her. As the onslaught begins, two things become terribly clear: the pirates have a powerful new weapon, and they have an accomplice within Winding Circle. But the attackers have failed to reckon with the fury of a young mage betrayed once too often and her very stubborn, very loyal friends …”

The book I borrowed from the library is like a tiny hardcover book the size of a normal mass-market paperback and I think this kind of book is ideal for bookshelves and such because it’s small enough to be portable, but still has a hardback cover. I realize it’s a strange thing for me to like in a book, but I very much enjoyed this aspect of the reading experience.

Meanwhile, this book continues with where Sandry’s Book left off, two weeks after the earthquake where the quartet started really working as a team. I’m not going to say too much about this book because it follows very closely with my original assessments from Sandry’s Book and I don’t want to give away any plot spoilers about how the book plays out. I continue to enjoy the characters for all the reasons I stated in my previous book review for this series and I feel as though this book works well with the established story so far. Overall, I’d say this book is still a high three on my rating scale and if the series continues in this way, it’s definitely a series that I will need to own nice copies of in the future.

Pierce, Tamora. Circle of Magic: Tris’s Book. Scholastic Press: New York, 1998.