They're very good. If you liked Diana Wynne jones (or even if you didn't), you'd probably like these. They always seem to take place in 1 of 2 alternate universes. I'm going to describe every book in the series now, so...

There's the Circle Universe, which begins with the Circle of Magic books. It centers around four unusual young mages. Sandry, a noble
whose parents died recently, has power with thread, from spinning and weaving to
simple knot-tying. Daja, a Trader, is the only survivor of a shipwreck in which
her family drowned. Declared to be bad luck and banned from life with other
Traders, she is free to learn to work metals and, through metal, to work magic.
Tris, the merchant's daughter, is no orphan, but her family doesn't want her.
Briar is a street rat, a thief and convict. Only at the temple city of Winding
Circle does he learn that his strange love of growing things is more than a need
to garden. Brought together in a house inside the temple city's walls, watched
over by the mages Lark, Rosethorn, Frostpine and Niko, the four struggle to be
friends, to exercise their magic, and to survive. Each book centers on one of
the four, but make no mistake: they are bound tightly together, and the events
that affect each of them also strengthen their connections to one another. I copied that from Tamora Pierce's website, since I'm no good at book descriptions.

Next comes The Circle opens Quartet. It takes place after the 4 mages have each left the temple for some reason or another. They're out on their own, and, after 4 years, are not acustomed to it. It's... interesting, but Circle of Magic should probably be read first.

Then, there are 2 seperate novels: The Will of the Empress (when they get back together at a castle in another country) and Melting Stones (about a student of Briar's that you'll first meet in The Circle Opens). That's it for now in the Circle Universe.

There's also a Tortall Universe. The first books in it are The Song of The Lioness Quartet. This story, all four
books, is about the making of a hero. It's also about a very stubborn girl.

Alanna of Trebond wants to be a knight of the realm of Tortall, in a time when
girls are forbidden to be warriors. Rather than give up her dream, she and her
brother--who wants to be a mage, not a knight--switch places. She becomes Alan;
Thom becomes a student wizard in the school where she would have learned to be a
lady.

The quartet is about her struggle to achieve her goals and to master
weapons, combat, polite behavior, her magic, her temper, and even her own heart.
It is about friendships--with the heir to the throne, the King of Thieves, a
wise and kindly knight--and her long struggle against a powerful enemy mage.

She
sees battle as a squire and as a knight, lives among desert people and tries to
rescue an independent princess. Singled out by a goddess, accompanied by a
semi-divine cat with firm opinions, somehow she survives her many adventures to
become a most unlikely legend. I copied this from the website as well, since i haven't even read it all.

After that comes The Immortals Quartet. All the orphaned Daine wants
when she comes to Tortall is a job. What she finds is magic in many forms, an
ongoing war with creatures from legends and nightmares, a new home and,
eventually, her unknown father.

Hired by the Queen's Riders to help with their
horses, she learns her knack with animals is a rare magic which helps her to
communicate with the animal kingdom.

With that discovery she becomes the
student--then friend and sometimes protector--of the great mage Numair. He also
helps her to develop her second magical skill, the ability to sense the presence
of the immortals, fabled creatures who have come to mortal lands after a long
imprisonment.

All these changes in Daine's life bring her new human friends as
well as animal ones: Tortall's rulers, Alanna the Lioness, the heir to the
throne of imperial Carthak, a pygmy marmoset, and the badger god. Often she
comes into contact--and sometimes conflict--with Stormwings--half human, half
steel birds; dragons; spidrens--giant furred spiders with human heads and an
appetite for human flesh; griffins; and the clawed, winged horses called
hurroks.

Daine is kept on the move as she grows into adulthood and her power,
coming to terms with her world and her strange, mixed parentage. This is also copied from the website, since I haven't read it all either.

Then, there's the Protecter of the Small Quartet. This is the tale of
Keladry of Mindelan, a girl who wants just one thing: to copy the feat of her
hero Alanna the Lioness, and win her knight's shield. She is now old enough to
be a page, and the King has decreed that any nobly-born girl with her parents'
consent can enter the palace school. Kel has that permission, as well as the
warnings of her parents and older brothers that she will not exactly be welcomed
in her new life. They are right, but she means to succeed. To stop Kel in her
tracks, the training master, Lord Wyldon of Cavall, insists that she be placed
on probation. The second Protector book, details Kel's remaining
years as a page. Just because she survived her first year doesn't mean that
everyone now loves and accepts her. She has to deal with that, among other
things. What other things? you ask. Try a stray dog who doesn't listen when Kel
says "No." Try a maidservant who squeaks with dismay every time Kel picks up a
weapon. Try a company of bandits that isn't supposed to be there. Try new boys
and changes in her own body. And never forget Kel's fear of heights. When Lord
Wyldon sends her out to climb trees, walls, and cliffs, is he doing it because
he wants to cure her of her fear, or drive her away from the palace? The third Protector book, describes Kel's next
four years. Her new knight-master is as different from Lord Wyldon as a man can
be. He introduces Kel to a new way of life, one that's as much fun as it is hard
work. He not only allows her to carry and use her Yamani glaive, but he helps
her to take her skill at jousting to the next level, one that introduces
Tortall's young knights and squires to a formidable new force on the tournament
field. She has the care of a very different new foundling, as well as matters of
the heart to consider. Kel meets a wide panorama of new faces, including the
Yamani princess Shinkokami and her ladies, a very troubled squire, a baby
griffin, and a metal creation like nothing she has ever seen before. Old friends
and foes appear: Neal of Queenscove, Cleon of Kennan, Owen of Jesslaw, and the
puzzling Joren of Stone Mountain. Through it all, Kel never allows herself to
forget what awaits her after her night-long vigil in Midwinter of her fourth
year as a squire: the Chamber of the Ordeal. The fourth Protector book, describes Kel's
first appearance as a knight of the realm. War with Scanra is declared at last
during the book, and Kel finds herself in charge of not a border post or even a
portion of the army, but of a refugee camp, placed there by her district
commander, Lord Wyldon. She's certain that he does this to keep her out of the
fighting, but she also knows that these people, torn from their homes, robbed of
their wealth and self-respect, are her responsibility. She must feed them, house
them, and keep them safe from harm, on a piece of ground that is far too close
to the Scanran border. She will have help, in the shape of her old friends Neal
and Merric, the horses Peachblossom and Hoshi, the dog Jump and her personal
sparrow flock, but also from as mixed a brew of people as ever came together at
one point: the Wildmage called Daine; Daine's lover, the great mage Numair;
Neal's own father, Duke Baird of Queenscove; Kel's former knight-master Raoul of
Goldenlake and Malorie's Peak, and men of the King's Own, including Kel's friend
Sergeant Domitan of Masbolle; convict soldiers, who have been given the choice
to fight in the army or to die at hard labor; several hundred refugees who have
gotten too many empty promises from nobles; smugglers, and a stolid, unusual boy
named Tobe. While Kel struggles with her responsibilities and the urge
simply to abandon the camp and find a real fight, another obligation
hangs over her. Tied to the camp, she cannot pursue the task set for her by the
Chamber of the Ordeal: to find and destroy the mage who is using foul magic to
create the rat-like, swift-moving, deadly metallic things known to the
Tortallans as "killing devices." As the summer wears on and the war intensifies,
events move to put a perverted mage and his conscienceless war-leader in Kel's
path, to test her resolve and find out if she is truly worthy of her shield. That's copied from the website. I haven't read any of those books at all.

Then comes the Trickster's Duo. Alianne is the sixteen-year old daughter of Tortall's legendary lady knight, Alanna the Lioness.
Her mother isn't the only legend in Aly's life--from her adopted aunt Daine, a demi-goddess and
mage, to her godfather, the king of Tortall, Aly lives among legends and wonders. She takes
them in stride. What she cannot accept is the fact that her parents refuse to allow her the career
she's been raised to by her father, that of a spy (Mom says, "not another spy in the family;"
Dad says, "not my little girl!"). Aly's had enough. If her parents won't let her be a spy, then
at least she means to have some fun. She gets more than she expected when she sails straight
into a pirate fleet. The pirates capture her and sell her as a slave to the noble Balitang family
in the Copper Isles.

It
is with the Balitangs that Aly's great adventure begins, courtesy of
the trickster god of the
Isles, a jaunty fellow named Kyprioth. Once ruler of the Isles, he
lost his throne to Mithros and
the Great Mother Goddess when the governing luarin, or whites,
conquered the raka people of
the Isles three hundred years before. Now he has a plan to re-take the
Isles with the help of the
raka and their luarin friends. For his plan to work, he needs the last
two daughters of the old
line of raka queens to stay alive when they are exiled, along with
their father, step-mother, step-sister, and step-brother to a small and
distant estate on the northernmost Isle. Kyprioth makes
Aly a wager. If she can keep her master's children alive during their
summer in exile,
safeguarding them from the dangers that exist for a family out of royal
favor, Kyprioth will not
only return her to her home, but persuade her father to let her be a
spy. If Aly fails, she owes
the god a year's service, if she is alive to pay the debt. Aly takes
the wager.

It will be in the highlands on Lombyn Isle that Aly learns of the raka's long struggle for freedom
and of the mad decisions made by the present ruling family. There she will learn to respect the
Balitang children and their parents and to admire the conspirators who mean to make the oldest
daughter, Saraiyu, the first raka queen in three centuries. She will encounter the charming,
ruthless Prince Rubinyan, and make the acquaintance of a very unusual crow. She thinks she
is immune to passion and that her magical Sight, inherited from her father and strengthened by
her mother's blood, will help to warn her of any trouble. She does not understand that
Kyprioth's plans for her are not what he says they are, or that more than one
kind of peril awaits a slave girl who could walk away from her slavery at any
time, if she wished to. Where will her loyalties be at summer's end--if she's
alive.
In the spring after the events of TRICKSTER'S CHOICE, Aly and the Balitangs return to the
capital of Rajmuat, to drastically different lives. Young Elsren Balitang is now heir to King
Dunevon; both boys are five years old. Mequen's dragon great-aunt Nuritin has established
herself in the Balitang townhouse to guide Winnamine, Sarai, and Dove on their new life at
court, establishing alliances for Elsren. The outer isles are showing signs of revolt, as is
Rajmuat itself. Ulasim, the head footman, now moves into his own as the farsighted general
of the rebellion, with Fesgao as his warchief, Chenaol as armorer, and Ochobu and her fellow
mage Ysul coordinating the magical side of the struggle.

At the heart of it all is Aly, now coordinating her own trained spies as they embark on a
program of psychological warfare and sabotage in the capital and the palace. Aly's partially
romantic relationship with Nawat, the former crow, is also in trouble. He needs work to keep
him busy, but there is little demand for a fletcher in the city, and Aly continues to see his
usefulness primarily in crow terms. The trickster god Kyprioth is there, too, stirring things up,
trying to heighten the rebels' progress before his fellow gods Mithros and the Great Mother can
return to put a halt to his comeback.

As the rebellion builds, new players come Aly's way. First there is the man called Topabaw,
for years the master of the Isles' spies and the bogeyman with which luarin and raka nursemaids
alike threaten their charges if they misbehave. Aly soon comes to see that for the raka rebels
and their co-conspirators to take her city, she must first destroy Topabaw, who everyone
believes is indestructible. She also finds another potential foe in the captain of King Dunevon's
personal guards, a big, personable fellow named Taybur Sibigat, who realizes Aly is up to
something the moment he lays eyes on her. Aunt Nuritin proves to be more than just a fierce
chaperon. There are new additions to Aly's pack of spies. And old friends, or rather, new
incarnations of old friends come into the picture when Aly receives a delightful present from her
aunt: a collection of the small, glob-like creatures called darkings. As they are quick to tell her, what one of them knows,
they all know.

The Balitang ladies are busy, too. Dove, tired of waiting for an
invitation, includes herself in
a meeting of the heads of the raka rebellion, and goes right to work
helping to smooth her sister's path to the throne. Sarai still is not
aware of the rebellion's purpose. She only knows
that people turn out to see her whenever she rides with her noble
friends and with her family. Both they and Winnamine are treading very
carefully at court, where King Dunevon's regents
are on the alert for any challenge to their power, and growing tired of
kowtowing to their five-year-old charge. They will stop at nothing to
ensure their grip on power in the Isles, unless the raka prophecy is
true at last, and the Twice-Royal Queen is ready to return rule to the
native
people of the Isles.

Aly, her friends, and her foes, have a long, complex struggle before them as
they encounter success, failure, and sudden surprises, because no one person, or
god, can control everything everywhere throughout the Isles. There are all
kinds of mistakes to be made, allegiances to develop, and battles to endure
until the world knows, once and for all, who will be the Trickster's Queen. I copied that from the website, too, because I've never read any of these, either.

The
Beka Cooper Trilogy is the story of Rebakah Cooper, a young Tortallan
woman (she is 16 when the trilogy begins) born two centuries before Alanna,
Daine, Kel, and Aly. Beka has dreamed of being a Provost’s Guard—a
policewoman—half of her life. She was born in the capital’s worst slum, the
Cesspool, and lived there for eight years, the oldest child of an herbalist
with terrible taste in men. The last one is a criminal, a member of a gang
that is terrorizing the wealthy citizens of Corus. When he beats and robs
Beka’s mother and abandons her, the 8-year-old sees her chance for revenge.
She tracks the man to his gang’s hiding place, then reports it to the Lord
Provost himself, Gershom of Haryse. She doesn’t know it, but Gershom’s
career as Lord Provost was hanging by a thread as a result of his inability
to capture this gang. With his career restored, Gershom repays his debt to
the young slum girl by taking her entire family into his household to be
educated and reared to work in a higher income bracket than they would ever
have achieved in the Cesspool. In Beka he has found someone who loves the
work of the Provost’s Guard as much as he does. She becomes his particular
protégée,
running his errands, hearing his stories, running messages between the
different Guard stations, or “Kennels,” and getting his sponsorship into the
school for Guards, or as they’re known on the streets, “Dogs.” i copied that from the website. I haven't read either book.

I hope this isn't too long, Admins…

Okay Brynne, get out your pencil and a pad of paper, because this is going to be long and very possibly confusing. Tamora Pierce has been writing about a fantastical land called Tortall for 20 years, so we're talking about 3 different generations of headstrong women here.

Totall is a magical land set in medieval times, where certain people have magical powers. The most common of these is the Gift, which is just normal magical skills. Then there is the Sight, which varies from person to person what it can do, but almost always allows the person to see magical auras around Gift users. Then there is Wild Magic, or the ability to talk to animals. Finally, there is Air magic, which allows you to talk to magical dust devils and the dead who inhabit pigeons bodies.

The first quartet is Song of the Lioness, about a girl named Alanna and a little about her twin Thom. Alanna and Thom's father have different ideas for the two of them than they have for themselves. Thom wants to be the greatest sorcerer of all time, and Alanna wants to become a knight. Unfortunately for her, girls are not allowed to become knights, so she disguises herself as a boy in order to win her shield.

The second quartet is The Immortals, about a young woman named Daine who has wild Magic. The only surviving member of her family, she must shake off the past in order to save herself and others.

The third quartet is the Protecter of the Small. Keladry of Mindelan is a practical girl, who yearns to follow in the footsteps of her hero, Alanna the Lioness. But as the only girl page and squire, can she prove to the boys that she can do just as well, if not better, at fighting?

Then there are the Trickster's Choice and the Trickster's Queen. Alianne of Pirate's Swoop longs to be a spy like her da, but is forbidden by both her parents. When she is captured and enslaved on Cooper Isles, she must put what she knows of her da's work to the test in order to save a noble luarin (word for white) family and their half-raka (word for black) daughters, with the help of the local Trickster god, Kyprioth.

Finally, there are the Beka Cooper books. Beka is the distant ancestor of George Cooper, and she wants to be a Dog. Not as in the fluffy thing that you might have at home, but as in the Police. In Terrier, she documents her life as a Puppy, or a Dog-in-training. In Bloodhound, she is a full blown Dog, but still lacks a partner.

Hopefully my improptu essay about Tortall has helped you become less confused, rather than more so.

(By the way, I loved Bloodhound.)