Tamora Pierce's Battle Magic
In the last couple of books in the Circle series, Pierce has referenced a war involving Pierce's Imperial China analogue that Briar, Rosethorn, and Evvy fought in/survived, and I guess she decided to write a whole book about the war, even though we already know our main characters make it out mostly unscathed. Actually, this is stronger than some of the other books in this series--there's a lot more going on, especially since the three characters split up for a while. But the second half of the book is mostly getting ready for battles, and battling, and I just think reading about battles is boring. Plus, some cats are killed by the bad guys just to show how bad they are. It's entirely unnecessary, since they're also torturing a 12-year-old girl (not a spoiler--this is referenced in the earlier books). Gratuitous animal murder is an automatic downgrade. B/B-.
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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on September 24th.
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