Alanna - Tamora Pierce

Alanna of Trebond wants nothing more than to be a knight, but she's a girl and has to train to be a lady instead. Her twin brother Thom doesn't want to be a knight, hoping instead to train as a sorceror, but their father is no fan of magic. Desparate, Alanna talk Maude, the local healing woman, into allowing her to pose as a boy - at ten, she and Thom have identical colouring (violet eyes and flame red hair) and features, distinguishable only by their hair length. Accompanied by Coram, who taught them the basics of sword play and horse riding, Alanna (now Alan) finds her initial training harder than she expected, but rewarding. She makes both enemies and friends early, and counts the prince and his posse in the latter group, as well as the King of Thieves. Her most devoted enemy, the older Raolon of Maven, leaves the palace in disgrace when, after months of tormenting her and secret training, Alanna bests him in a fight.
The apprenticeship for knighthood is long and arduous, and Alanna begins as a page. Not long after coming to the royal palace a strange illness, the Sweating SIckness, sweeps across the land. Resistant to all forms of therapy, it leaves a swathe of dead in its wake, depleting even the sorcerers, before attacking the Prince. Alanna has ignored her Gift but believes she can tackle the Sickness. While she hesitates a dear friend dies, and Alanna immediuately heads to the Prince's chamber, where he lies on deaths' door. She fetches Prince Jonathan's spirit form the place between Life and Death, in the process revealing her gender to one of her mentors, Sir Myles of Olau.
Over the course of the first novel her gender is also revealed to George and, at the end of the novel, Jon.
Not long after all is safe in the City, Jon's beloved uncle Roger, Duke of Conté, comes to the palace to teach the young pages and squires magic. Alanna dislikes and mistrusts him immediately, but cannot explain why.
The first in a quartet, Alanna is gripping and evocative. Magic comes at a price, and is wrought by few, but it is clear from the outset that the gods have a destiny in mind for Alanna and she has not only that Gift but others. To say more would give away significant aspects of the plot, but I was very impressed by my first contact with respected and long-standing FSF author Pierce. This is a great start to a new year of reading and I look forward to the rest of the series. - Alex