Helpful Score: 3
I loved the Great Alta series (Sister Light, Sister Dark and White Jenna), but I was so upset after I read this book on how things end in the Dales that I need to let it go...
Helpful Score: 1
This is the 3rd of Yolen's Great Alta medieval fantasy books, but it stands well on its own and is very accessible to readers new to the series.
Whereas the previous books dealt with Jenna's trajectory from orphan to queen as she defends the women of the Hames and carves forth the egalitarian kingdom of the Dales, this book deals with the next generation taking up the new and different challenges faced by an established but beseiged society. It takes up the coming-of-age of Scillia, Jenna's feisty but deeply troubled daughter. The two are so similar in their passion and intensity that friction is inevitable. And it is only worsened by the malice of young Jem, Scilla's brother, whose weakness and craving for power could prove the tool which the tyrannical, patriarchal Garuns desire in order to extinguish the freedom of the Dales.
Despite her youth and inexperience, Scillia may be the last hope remaining for the people of the Dales as they face a new assault of Garun treachery. But can an angry teenager set aside her bitterness over raw family secrets, and whole-heartedly accept a leadership role she never wanted, from a mother who now seems to her a stranger? The answer lies in a desperate flight into the wilderness, and the past...
Whereas the previous books dealt with Jenna's trajectory from orphan to queen as she defends the women of the Hames and carves forth the egalitarian kingdom of the Dales, this book deals with the next generation taking up the new and different challenges faced by an established but beseiged society. It takes up the coming-of-age of Scillia, Jenna's feisty but deeply troubled daughter. The two are so similar in their passion and intensity that friction is inevitable. And it is only worsened by the malice of young Jem, Scilla's brother, whose weakness and craving for power could prove the tool which the tyrannical, patriarchal Garuns desire in order to extinguish the freedom of the Dales.
Despite her youth and inexperience, Scillia may be the last hope remaining for the people of the Dales as they face a new assault of Garun treachery. But can an angry teenager set aside her bitterness over raw family secrets, and whole-heartedly accept a leadership role she never wanted, from a mother who now seems to her a stranger? The answer lies in a desperate flight into the wilderness, and the past...
