Jody Lynn Nye, An Unexpected Apprentice

An Unexpected Apprentice

Jody Lynn Nye

Tor, Jun 28 2007, $25.95

ISBN: 0765314339

On Daybreak Bank Farm, halfling Tildi Summerbee takes care of the household while her brothers tended the field. However, this day she knows something is not right when she fails to hear Marco play his flute and Teldo, Pierin and Gosto accompany him by singing. She looks out the window to see to horror of the flock of thraik attack the people of the Quarters for the fifth time in her seventeen years; she thinks back to her parents dead from these beasts and now her siblings too.

Afterward, the villagers knowing a female halfling cannot live without male protection and arrange for Tildi to marry; Tildi disagrees, but knows she will convince no one. Irate An angry Tildi decides to leave the community she has known all her life. Disguised as her late sibling Teldo, and using her few magical powers that make her unique as a female halfling, Tildi takes over her brother's new position as AN UNEXPECTED APPRENTICE.

This is a coming of age fantasy that focuses on Tildi's growth as a person as she confronts racial and gender bias that interfere with her making it as a solo female without male protection. The story line focuses more on her improving skills from apprentice to wizard rather than the prejudice she faces as a halfling compounded by being a female (except for the opening decision of what is good for her without her input by her male neighbors); minority females with no man to protect them are the lowest on the food chain. No epic fantasized Battles of the Bulge, high school students will enjoy Tildi's escapades to live her life her way.

Harriet Klausner