Cold Fire - Tamora Pierce

[goodreads]

Title: Cold Fire
Author: Tamora Pierce
Genre: Fantasy
Rating: 3.5/5
# pages: Audiobook ~10hrs
Date read: September, 2010

Daja and her teacher, Frostpine, settle into the northern Namorn city of Kugisko for a restful winter break. Not surprisingly, their illusions are promptly shattered, as Daja discovers that the twin daughters of her host have "ambient magic." As the discovering-mage, Daja is obliged to teach the fidgety girls the rudiments of magic. Meanwhile, Kugisko seems to have fallen into the hands of a ruthless arsonist, and Daja is determined to help her new firefighting friend, Bennat Ladradun, get to the bottom of the mystery.

Whereas the Circle of Magic quartet was mostly written for a younger audience, the same definitely cannot be said about the Circle Opens quartet. Here Tamora Pierce dives into the darker aspects of life and humanity.

Daja has always been my favourite of the four, but she does seem an awful lot older than 14. I guess some of that could be contributed to her past, but still. Nia and Jory were much more believable 10-year-olds than Daja ever was. Although I have to say they drove me crazy with their obstinancy to learning meditation. I would not have been able to be as patient with them as Daja was, and think their disobedience was passed by much too easily. That bugged me.

I was fascinated by the insights into the arsonists mind - especially his absolute bafflement, that Daja could ever suspect him of being cruel or a monster - he obviously thought his actions perfectly reasonable and a natural consequence of how he was treated... probably not too far off from how real psychopaths think