The Tenth Power

Book: The Tenth Power (Book Three of the Chanters of Tremaris trilogy)
Author: Kate Constable
Audience: Teen to Adult
In a Nutshell: girl fulfills prophecy by singing the magical songs of all nine Powers- but wait, there's one more?

When we last saw Calwyn in Book Two (The Waterless Sea), she had bittten off more magic than she could chew, it turned around and bit her in the butt, and now she has lost all her powers of chantment. Chantments are songs that work like spells to work magic in the world of Tremaris, and only for those with a gift for it. There are different types of chantments that control the powers of Ice, Winds, Iron, Beasts, Seeming, and more. A chanter is usually only capable of singing one, maybe two types of chantments, but there is a prophecy that tells of a powerful Singer of All Songs who will change the world, one way or the other. A very ambitious- make that megalomaniacal- chanter named Samis would love to put that on his World Dominators Guild resume, but it was looking like the title would go to Calwyn. That is, until she lost it all.

Now Calwyn and friends are trudging their way to her home of Antaris, where the priestesses with the Power of Ice live in seclusion behind a massive ice wall, and boy, is Calwyn cranky. Not that she doesn't have her reasons. She lost all her powers, it should be spring but winter is mysteriously holding out, and her true love, Darrow, is off searching for Samis across the world. When they arrive at Antaris, they discover that not only is a mysterious illness is affecting only chanters, but a mean and nasty priestess has taken leadership and everyone's living in fear. Something is very wrong with the world of Tremaris itself; the chanter's sickness and extra-long winter are only the latest symptoms. Calwyn has an idea how to make things right, so she, Darrow and the rest head off to save the world.

The trilogy overall is an engrossing fantasy tale. I'd call this last book the weakest, but still enjoyable. The narrative occasionally jerks along to get from one major event to another, and all the elements of plot and character didn't culminate into a big three-book finish quite as well as I hoped they would. Still, there's enough grand finale magic and prophecy fulfillment to make the trilogy a satisfying read for fantasy lovers.

I won't give away the Big (though not as big as I'd hoped) Magical Moment at the end, but I will say that it brought to mind a song from a Fred and Ginger movie I just watched this week. The movie is Follow the Fleet, and the song by Irving Berlin starts like this:

There may be trouble ahead
But while there's moonlight and music
And love and romance
Let's face the music and dance