The Ruins of Gorlan is the first book in The Ranger's Apprentice series. I had noticed it as I was shelving books at Kenwood and thought it looked like a good "boy" book. Well, it unequivocally is. Girls who like adventure will like it, too. It was very fast-paced. I couldn't put it down.
Will, Jenny, George, Horace, and Alyss are all wards of Castle Redmont under the supervision of Baron Arald. When they turn 15, they are eligible for Choosing Day. Each of the five have their choices made and hope to be accepted. Will wants to go to battleschool, but he is small in size. He becomes the apprentice to Ranger Halt instead, and is in for the ride of his life.
Topics for The Ruins of Gorlan: knights, rangers, intelligence officers, apprenticeship, boar hunt, bullying, integrity, hard work, training, learning a trade, swords, orphans, medieval-like setting, horses
The Burning Bridge is more violent than The Ruins of Gorlan because of the battle scenes. It's also more intense. It also ends with a cliff-hanger, so you'll want to have book 3 at the ready. The language is a little more rough in this book as well.
Topics for The Burning Bridge: war, enemy, sword fighting, thieves, secret identity, allies, deception, miners, slaves, hostages, negotiations, emissary
The Icebound Land finds Will and Evanlyn on board a ship sailing toward Skandia, an icy, snow-covered place. Evanlyn's true identity is still a secret. Will gets addicted to warmweed while working as a slave in the yards (The warmweed is given to him without his understanding of what it is.). Evanlyn works as a servant/slave inside the buildings, so she has a little warmth. Their story is built around an attempt to escape.
Meanwhile, Holt and Horace leave Araluen to seek out Will and Evanlyn. They encounter the nasty Lord Deparnieux who is unspeakably cruel and evil. I love reading about Holt. He's a very smart man who does a great job training Will (in earlier books) and Horace.
Once again, the book ends with you eager to get to the next book. Also, the amount of swearing increased in this book. For me, that's a bummer, but the story is really good, so I chose to ignore it.
Topics for The Icebound Land: sailing, capture, drug addiction, slavery, winter survival, escape, unexpected friends, evil rulers, lawless land, creating opportunity, plotting
In The Battle for Skandia, we read the conclusion to the story started in book 3. Early in the book, the four get reunited and become allies of their former enemies, the Skandians, in order to defeat an even more fierce enemy...the Temujai. The Temujai remind me of what the warrior Mongolians of old may have been like. In fact, when I looked up Genghis Khan, I read that his real name was Temujin. Sound familiar?
Be prepared for a lot of battle scenes in this book. Once again, I came to the conclusion of the book wanting to get my hands on the next one. This series does a really good job of making you care about the characters. All of them are written and fleshed out so well that you think you know them. I love that. (Had a little less swearing than the previous two books.)
Topics for The Battle of Skandia: archers, battle, warriors, strategy, treaty, uneven odds, rescue, traitor, rulers, hand-to-hand combat
Genre: fantasy (limited fantasy elements)
Mrs. Beckwith's Rating: 5 of 5
Amazon Reviews for The Ruins of Gorlan
Amazon Reviews for The Burning Bridge
Amazon Reviews for The Icebound Land
Amazon Reviews for The Battle for Skandia
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