There are some really exciting key points explained in this book.

1) In Squire (at least the original hardback), despite the span of a squire has been defined as four years, Keladry ages 14, 16, and 17... which confused me for many, many years. Typo or an author losing track, I don't care. I'll take the information in this book as official: Kel was a squire for 3 years, "16" was printed for when she was 15, "17" for when she was 16, and "18" for when she was 17. She got her shield at 17, and Lady Knight's main plot concludes just before her actual 18th birthday.

Yes, this is a big deal to me, lol.

2) Owen marries Lord Wyldon's youngest daughter three yeas after Lady Knight. I just want to laugh and imagine what a short story on that would be like. I want Lord Wyldon's reaction. His and Owen's dynamic is one of my favorites.

Other than those exciting takeaways, I admit to skimming this book. I love how it's designed and fills in some minor gaps just for the heck of it, but I'm not keen on reading instructions and cookbook descriptions or letters. ( )

If it's Tortall, I'm going to read it. Frankly, if it's Pierce, I'm going to read it. That being said, this is a bit of a gimmicky tie-in kind of book, however, I love that there are several interesting reveals sprinkled throughout. I love the pulling together of timelines and the potential future stories that exist within the pages. I hope that some of those stories come about. ( )

I love any book by Tamora Pierce. This series is good and if it was by any other author I would call it great. However, since I have such high expectations for Tamora Pierce I cannot call it truly wonderful. The information it contained as quite good but I found the format a bit boring to read. ( )

Any book that gives readers more information about a created fantasy realm is okay in my eyes, but Pierce did a great job in taking it one step further for her fan base. Unlike most books of these sorts, which rely on illustrations to bring concrete visuals to the readers or rehash established characters or location (allbeit in a more organized and condensed manner) Pierce and her team wrote this book as if it's actual documents from Tortall. Some of the information is already familiar to readers, but they fully unravel Tortall's spy corps (a generally mysterious topic, which we saw hints of in the Daughter of the Lioness duet) by presenting the book as a collection of George Cooper's papers. For a spy master he's pretty disorganized, but we'll forgive him his foibles since that's just George. Quiet a bit of the later material in the book also presented some new topics for readers to ponder over - and hopefully hint at Pierce's future books which continue where the Daughter of the Lioness' and Jeladry's series left off. My only criticism of the book is the brief "complete chronology of Tortall" compiled by Alan Cooper as a school exercise. It definitely demonstrated the breadth of Tortallan (and otherwise) history which Pierce has to work with, but that made it altogether too brief and tantalizing for me! Who are these previous rulers of Tortall and who were the players who dominated the realm? Thankfully Pierce doesn't seem to be slowing down and continues to publish steadily, so I'm sure there will be plenty more stories forthcoming. ( )

I really don't know how to review this. Quite honestly this was completely unnecessary. But I loved it. Tamora Pierce was one of my favourite authors growing up, and this book made me SO NOSTALGIC. Also it was good. It may have been unnecessary, but it was also very good.

This wasn't a story or anything, just a collection of files and letters and the like. And honestly that really worked with Tamora Pierce's strengths. Her writing is great. Her characters are great. But while her plots themselves are actually pretty good, the pacing is... not.

And so this worked really well. Because does a collection of files require pacing? No. But it does require good writing to be enjoyable, and somehow she managed to make the characters shine in this.

Literally, the characters were so strong. I mean, would this work as an introduction to them? Of course not. But that's not what it's meant as. It's meant for the readers who already know and love them, and as that, it's perfect.

This was just so enjoyable! There were so many parts that made me laugh of loud, or put a huge nostalgic grin on my face, and I am so pleased I finally read this! Also we finally got to see some of Neal's infamous poetry, and it was amazing 😂😂😂

Also I appreciated the timeline. It was very, very helpful. Because seriously, her pacing is awful and I had no clue when anything was happening in the books.

If you're a fan of Tamora Pierce's other Tortall works, I cannot recommend this more! So much fun, and so enjoyable!

***Initial reaction, August 31, 2018***

ALL THE NOSTALGIA!!! RTC. ( )