First Test: No.1 (Protector of the Small S.) [Jan 21, 2000] Pierce, Tamora

It's ten years since royal decree permitted girls to train as knights. No one applied - until now. Keladry of Mindelan is determined to follow in the footsteps of the nation's gretest legend: Alanna, Lioness of Tortall. She's in for a nasty surprise.

The royal training master, Lord Wyldon of Cavall, thinks girls should stick to embroidery. He will take her for one year only - on probation. If Keladry doesn't meet his exacting standards, she's out.

It seems unfair. Keladry knows she's equal to any of the boys, but how can she hope to succeed when Lord Wyldon's mind is already made up?

In the sixth grade, Tamora Pierce was encouraged by her father to start writing and she immediately got hooked. Once she discovered fantasy and science fiction, she tried to write the same kind of stories she read, only with teenaged girl heroines who were usually missing from the 1960s stories.

Before her junior year at the University of Pennsylvania where she studied psychology, Pierce rediscovered writing when she wrote her first original short story since tenth grade. She sold her first story a year later and then enrolled in a fiction writing course during her senior year. When her teacher suggested that she tackle a novel, her childhood ideas came back to her and she began her first sword and sorcery novel.

Pierce then worked as a housemother in an Idaho group home for teenaged girls, who loved hearing Alanna’s story from the in-progress quartet, Song of the Lioness. As Pierce continued to write and send out manuscripts, she moved to Manhattan to get her publishing career off the ground.

Pierce still lives in Manhattan with her husband, writer/filmmaker Tim, and their three cats, two parakeets, plus a floating population of rescued wildlife. She enjoys her hectic life as a full-time writer and she hopes that her books leave her readers with the feeling that they can achieve anything if they want it badly enough.

Tamora Pierce is a popular author of fantasy books for teenagers. In her latest quartet, Protector of the Small, readers follow heroine Kel as she rigorously trains for the knighthood.
From the Paperback edition.