Lioness Rampant

April 15, 2018 9:46 AM - by Tamora Pierce

"Having achieved her dream of becoming the first female knight errant, Alanna of Trebond is not sure what to do next. Perhaps being a knight errant is not all that Alanna needs....But Alanna must push her uncertainty aside when a new challenge arises. She must recover the Dominion Jewel, a legendary gem with enormous power for good -- but only in the right hands. And she must work quickly. Tortall is in great danger, and Alanna's archenemy, Duke Roger, is back -- and more powerful than ever. In this final book of the Song of the Lioness quartet, Alanna discovers that she indeed has a future worthy of her mythic past -- both as a warrior and as a woman."
posted by Eyebrows McGee (4 comments total)

This has always been my favorite of the series, and I think it holds up decently well on re-read. (That description is not great, though.) I don't even know how many dozens of times I've read this, and I still cry at all the deaths towards the end!
posted by john_snow at 6:50 AM on April 19, 2018

I wonder sometimes in the earlier books at how much Alanna wants to be a knight, even when it's clear that she'll be killing people. It makes more sense in this book. When she first sees Liam, she notes that he's weaponless. "The only men who went weaponless were sorcerers, priests, fools---or those who didn't need them. In a violent world, few did not need to carry some kind of weapon."
I can see how in a place like that, she'd prefer to be grouped with the men and be well-armed, rather than the women and be guarded.
posted by Margalo Epps at 7:13 PM on May 13, 2018 [1 favorite]

This is the one I go back and reread. Alanna changing a baby for the first time is hilarious!
posted by epj at 4:52 PM on May 18, 2018

I wish I'd been able to keep up with the re-read — just haven't had enough time! — but I do want to drop in and note one thing, now that we're at the end of the quartet.

I always appreciated (even as a teen) that Alanna has several romantic relationships, all of which feel very different and none of which feel like they're being telegraphed as The Soulmate. She's interested in several different men. (Jon and George are even friends of their own accord.) She tries out different types of relationships and figures out what works for her, and in the end she makes a choice.

I find it refreshingly realistic, compared to the type of YA fantasy in which there's a single love interest who's clearly & inevitably The One.
posted by fire, water, earth, air at 1:51 PM on May 28, 2018 [5 favorites]