**Isobelle Carmodys “Obernewtyn Series”. Which goes Obernewtyn, The Farseekers, Ashling, The Keeping Place and The Stone Key (so far).

The Obernewtyn Series are set in a land ruled by the tyrannous council and more ominously by the Herders, priests of Lud. Once a mechanism for survival, the Council hunts down misfits (any person or animal born physically or mentally deformed) for purely political reasons.

This awesome heroine is a misfit of a new kind – she, and others like her, have developed mind powers which take various guises (farspeaking, coercion, beastspeaking etc). Sent to the mountain of Obernewtyn on suspicion of possessing just such powers, Elspeth meets a number of fascinating characters who become her comrades in the struggle to build a haven from persecution for all misfits. This is the story told in the first two novels of the series; however, running underneath the action and development of the haven is the development of Elspeth’s unique destiny: to save the world from a re-occurence of the Great White nuclear holocaust that has devastated the world once already.

As the legendary Seeker, she must locate and destroy the machines which created the Great White before her nemesis, the Destroyer, can find them and use them. This is the thread of this sophisticated, morally complex series which continues to improve.

**Tamora Pierces “The Song Of The Lioness Quartet”. Which goes Alanna: The First Adventure, The Hand Of The Goddess, The Woman Who Rides Like A Man and Lioness Rampant.

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.

** Tamora Pierces “The Circle Of Magic” quartet. Which goes The Magic In The Weaving, The Power In The Storm, The Fire In THe Forging and The Healing In The Vine.

Set in a different universe from the Lioness and Immortals books, this quartet 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.

** Garth Nixs “The Old Kingdom Trilogy” is great. It goes Sabriel, Lirael and then Abhorsen.

“Sabriel” is the story of a teenage girl living happily at a girl’s school, while her necromancer father (the Abhorsen) roams around putting the dead to rest. All that changes when a sending brings her father’s sword and bells, meaning that he is dead or incapacitated. So Sabriel takes on her father’s duties, accompanied by a Free Magic cat and a mysterious young prince, and battles the specter of a horrible evil creature that is reaching out from death to snare her.

“Lirael” takes us to the cold citadel of the Clayr, a race of seers. Young Lirael is depressed because she doesn’t have the gift of Sight yet, even though everybody else her age does. But things take a sinister turn when she sets a horrifying, bloodthirsty creature loose, and must work — with the help of the mysterious Disreputable Dog — to get rid of it. But what Lirael doesn’t know is that the outside world is in danger too, from a sinister new enemy.

I wont tell you anything about Abhorsen because it’ll give away things in the other books ^_^.

**Alison Croggons “The Books of Pellinor Series”. Which goes The Gift (or The Naming in America), The Riddle, The Crow and The Singing.

“The Gift” Maerad is a slave in a desperate and unforgiving settlement, taken there as a child when her family is destroyed in war. She doesn’t yet know she has inherited a powerful gift, one that marks her as a member of the noble School of Pellinor and enables her to see the world as no other can. It is only when she is discovered by Cadvan, one of the great Bards of Lirigon, that her true identity and extraordinary destiny unfold. Now, she and her mysterious teacher must embark on a treacherous, uncertain journey through a time and place where the forces of darkness wield an otherworldly terror.

“The Riddle” Maerad is a girl with a tragic and bitter past, but her powers grow stronger by the day. Now she and her mentor, Cadvan, hunted by both the Light and the Dark, must unravel the Riddle of the Treesong before their fractured kingdom erupts in chaos. The quest leads Maerad over terrifying seas and vast stretches of glacial wilderness, ever closer to the seductive Winterking—ally of her most powerful enemy, the Nameless One. Trapped in the Winterking’s icy realm, Maerad must confront what she has suspected all along: that she is the greatest riddle of all.

“The Crow” I’m not going to say anything about the following books because it gives away some of the past plot ^_^.

“The Singing” As above.

**”Graceling” By Kristine Cashore

If you had the power to kill with your bare hands, what would you do with it?
Graceling takes readers inside the world of Katsa, a warrior-girl in her late teens with one blue eye and one green eye. This gives her haunting beauty, but also marks her as a Graceling. Gracelings are beings with special talents—swimming, storytelling, dancing. Katsa’s Grace is considered more useful: her ability to fight (and kill, if she wanted to) is unequaled in the seven kingdoms. Forced to act as a henchman for a manipulative king, Katsa channels her guilt by forming a secret council of like-minded citizens who carry out secret missions to promote justice over cruelty and abuses of power.

Combining elements of fantasy and romance, Cashore skillfully portrays the confusion, discovery, and angst that smart, strong-willed girls experience as they creep toward adulthood. Katsa wrestles with questions of freedom, truth, and knowing when to rely on a friend for help. This is no small task for an angry girl who had eschewed friendships (with the exception of one cousin that she trusts) for her more ready skills of self-reliance, hunting, and fighting. Katsa also comes to know the real power of her Grace and the nature of Graces in general: they are not always what they appear to be.

ENJOY!!!

Some of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover books.

Diane Duane’s Wizard books (“So You Want to Be a Wizard” is the first one in the series)

Phyllis Eisenstein – Born to Exile, In the Red Lord’s Reach, Sorcerer’s Son

Jody Lynn Nye – The Magic Touch