Naomi Kritzer, Freedom’s Sisters

Freedom's Sisters

Naomi Kritzer

Bantam, August 2006, $6.99, 416 pp.

ISBN: 0553586756

Wanting to please her father Kyros, a very highly placed power in the Penelopeia Empire, Lauria catches runaway slaves. She was sent to spy on the Alashi on the steppes outside the empire because they took in runaway slaves. They also have a surplus of karentitee which the rulers of the empire, the Sisterhood of Weavers, use to bind jinn, and that stock is desperately needed because Penelopeia is running out.

When Lauria tries to free the last slave she helped capture, the slave turns her in and her father takes her to Penelopeia to be judged because she also committed the crime of freeing a bound jinn; the only known person who can do so because she has a special gate in her heart which lets her return them to their home. Her blood-sister Tamar and two others are sent out to sow discord between the Sisterhood of the Weavers, the Young sisters and a rouge element of the army to divert attention from the Alashai who the empire wants to conquer in order to take possession of karentite. When Lauria gains her freedom through her series of adventures by hersef, with Tamar and her other allies, she believes she has a way of saving the empire.

What began in FREEDOM'S GAME and continues in FREEDOM'S APPRENTICE comes to a glorious conclusion in FREEDOM'S SISTERS. In a world where women hold the power Lauria and Tamar stand out as the brave people who try to overthrow their conditioning and fight the empire on their terms. Readers will be enthralled by the adventures Tamer and Lauria undergo, separately and together as they struggle to accomplish their goal. Naomi Kritzer is a master storyteller who creates characters the audience comes to love.

Harriet Klausner