by Tamora Pierce

“Men don’t think and differently from women – they just make more noise about being able to.”

 

Newly knighted, Alanna rides the desert in search of adventure. Captured by the Bloody Hawk tribe, she must challenge ancient tribal customs if she ever hopes for freedom. But how can she convince the tribe to change, when their powerful shaman cries hourly for her execution? Tradition demands that she prove her worth in a magical duel … to the death.

-Goodreads

For some reason, I always think I don’t like this book, certainly I believe it to be my least favourite. I think it’s possibly the title, I really don’t like the title.
But this is the first book of Alanna’s Knighthood and she has to go through a whole different kind of trial; one of magic. She’s never been comfortable with that side of her, often considering it cheating, but she starts to learn to accept all of herself as a whole, magic and Knight. She suffers loss and she experiences pride and she worries about ‘lazing in the desert’ but in the end, the experience has readied her for the next adventure.

This book gives us an insight into another culture within this world. Though we met another country in the previous book, it was a small glimpse of a similar way of life. This culture resides in the desert in tents and is in tune with magic and the world in a whole new way to Alanna’s experience.