Circle of Magic

About the Circle of Magic series

Circle of Magic leaves Pierce's Tortall setting entirely for a new world, Emelan, and follows four children whose magic doesn't fit any recognized mage tradition -- Sandry, a noble orphan whose power lives in thread and cloth; Tris, an awkward outcast whose emotions trigger storms; Daja, a Trader girl exiled by her own people after a shipwreck, whose magic runs through metal and fire; and Briar, a former street thief whose gift is for growing things -- each dismissed or feared by their own communities before being gathered at the Winding Circle temple community and placed under four specialist mage-teachers. Rather than a single chosen protagonist, the quartet splits its focus evenly across all four children, whose initially prickly, mismatched personalities are forced into cooperation first by shared magical training and then, increasingly, by genuine friendship as their four disciplines turn out to work better bonded together than apart. Each book centers a different crisis -- fire, earthquake, plague, pirates -- that the children's combined magic proves uniquely suited to handling, while the adults around them, particularly the dedicates Niko, Lark, Rosethorn, and Frostpine, provide a warmer, less institutional mentor dynamic than Tortall's knight-training hierarchies. It's Pierce's first major departure from Tortall and reads distinctly younger and more intimate in scale than her knighthood series, less concerned with kingdoms and succession than with four outsider kids learning that the thing that made them dangerous alone makes them formidable as a family.

How to read this series

Read Circle of Magic in publication order -- Sandry's Book, Tris's Book, Daja's Book, Briar's Book -- one continuous story that gathers the four child mages together in the first volume and then rotates focus while advancing a single ongoing plot. This series is entirely separate from Tortall -- different world, different magic system, no shared characters -- so none of Pierce's other quartets need to be read first. The direct sequel quartet, The Circle Opens, continues the same four characters a few years later and should be read after finishing all four Circle of Magic books.