On their way to the first Circle temple in Gyongxe, mages Briar, Rosethorn, and Evvy pay a visit to the emperor's summer palace. Although treated like royalty when they first arrive, the mages soon discover that the emperor plans to invade Gyongxe, posing a fatal threat to the home temple of the Living Circle religion. Accompanied by one of the emperor's prize captives, the three mages rush to Gyongxe to warn its citizens of the impending attack. With the imperials hot on their trail, Briar, Rosethorn, and Evvy must quickly help the country prepare for battle. But even with the help of new allies, will their combined forces be enough to fight the imperial army and win the war?
While I enjoyed Battle Magic by Tamora Pierce, it was not her best book. It was not as strong as I wanted it to be, and there were definitely some plot holes.
I felt like too much was left unexplained by the deus ex machina at the end of the novel. Honestly, I think I would have liked this a lot better if it had come out before Will of the Empress and Melting Stones. Will of the Empress is one of my favorite books by Pierce, but between the plot hints in both this novel and Melting Stones, I felt like there was too little that actually happened in Battle Magic.
I really wanted Briar to be properly captured, I wanted to see how she explained the creation of his ‘mind palace’ that came up during Will of the Empress. I didn’t expect to see so much of Evvy’s captivity and recovery. I loved that we got to meet Luvo, but again, we already knew Luvo from Melting Stones.
I just kind of wanted more from the book than what we got, in a way that I can’t explain very well. It was a well-written book, but it wasn’t what we’d been promised based on Melting Stones and Will of the Empress.