Trickster's Queen - Tamora Pierce (Daughter of the Lioness #2)

I wasn't actually planning on reading Trickster's Queen so soon after reading Trickster's Choice, but after a few books that were just "meh," I found myself in a bit of a reading slump.  And when I'm in a reading slump, I like to go back to books that I know I enjoy to get me out of it.

What struck me immediately upon re-reading Trickster's Queen is its great disconnect from the first book.  It picks up several months and much character development after Choice, which Pierce tries to bridge with a couple pages of prologue that is essentially all info-dump about what the characters have been doing in the interim.  However, the effect of this is that it feels like this is the third book in a trilogy in which the second book is missing.  Most of the development of Aly's relationship with Nawat, which was so sweet and charming in the first book, is just skipped over; so is Aly's building of her position as spymaster for the growing rebellion.

On the whole, however, this book has less infodumping than the first one.  The prologue is the vast majority of it, and the narrative itself is less interrupted with intermittent infodumps than Choice was.  Additionally, I think this one does a better job of building the environment, culture, and overall feel of the Copper Isles.  Aly also really has room to come into her own and show off her skills in this book, rather than scampering to use them while also hiding them as she had to in the first book.  Tensions come to a head regarding Sarai, and the twist that's hinted at all along finally actually happens.  Dove continues to be an excellent character, far wiser than her years, and the integration of many of the side characters is done very well.  The other minor flaw that comes to mind is that the end does feel a bit rushed; Pierce lists off a list of casualties, one of which was a major-minor character (if that makes sense) in the first book and then was just brushed aside in the second and then written off as a sacrifice of the rebellion.  With all of the build-up to the rebellion, it just seems to be over in remarkably few pages, and then the epilogue just feels a bit off as well, though I can't quite put my finger on why.

Overall, this is a good book; I definitely enjoyed re-reading it.  However, I don't think that it's as good as the first book in the duology.  It feels disconnected from the first part of the story, and the ending also feels rushed and off-kilter with the rest of the book.  The body has a good feel and good characters and a good plot, but without a strong beginning or end, I don't think it can be stronger than the first book.

4 stars out of 5.