Tamora Pierce is one of those fantasy authors that I missed as a kid, so I was always intrigued by her work and, after reading this, I can't say I'm super excited to dig any deeper. There's some stuff that I liked in this book, largely the relationship between the four foster sibling as it went from the awkwardness of their coming back together and blossomed into a new bond between them. I wasn't over the moon about the women-get-kidnapped-and-forced-into-marriage plot and it was particularly frustrating because, of the four siblings, Sandry was the one who I wanted to give a good shake more than once.

I would have liked to see what this fun group of misfits with different kind of magic could have done with a plot that was a little less repetitive and a much less of a bummer. This could have been more of a good time than it was.