Blue hair and sword fighting: What’s not to love about ‘Trickster’s Choice’?

    Week two of 2019 featured another writer I hadn’t heard of before, Tamora Pierce. Granted, she is a best-selling author who’s been around for decades, so maybe if I read fantasy books more than once a year I would have come across her sooner.
    Part of what keeps me from reading more fantasy is the effort it takes to familiarize myself with an entirely new world. Fiction works that include maps and glossaries of terms tend to put me off, and “Trickster’s Choice” has both. It even starts with an introduction that reads like a history book excerpt, and I nearly gave up on the novel before even getting to the first chapter.
    Nevertheless, I persisted, and it paid off. I’ll probably even read the sequel, “Trickster’s Queen” — and not just for the opportunity to skip 2020’s fantasy book and keep up my one-per-year average. While anyone who goes on to read “Trickster’s Choice” will find that the 16-year-old protagonist, Aly, has blue hair in the first chapter, I just want to clarify: That’s not the only reason I liked this book. Though it certainly didn’t hurt.
    Set in a world where kings and queens rule, gods and goddesses meddle, and magic abounds, the story begins with Aly’s attempts to navigate her teen years. It’s quickly apparent, however, that she’s up for facing much more than just petty adolescent drama. Likewise, the book proves to be about much more than just action and adventure. Topics of colonialism, slavery and racism provoke thought in a way that isn’t overbearing. And as good fiction often does, it gives readers an avenue for considering such things in the real world.
    Girl power was another thing that kept me reading long enough to become invested in the story. Aly is the daughter of Alanna the Lioness, Tortall’s first female knight in over 100 years. Turns out a whole separate series about the Lioness is what started Pierce’s multiple series set in the Tortall universe.
    With such a legendary mother, expectations are high for Aly, but her parents are vehemently opposed to her dream of becoming a spy. There’s little doubt that she’d be good at it, but it’s a dangerous profession. Despite her parents’ attempts to protect her from needless peril, Aly ends up captured by pirates and sold into slavery, thus facing plenty of danger anyway.

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