It is dark and cold when Goldie returns to the city of Jewel with her friend, Toadspit, and his sister, Bonnie. Though the children are tired, they know that they need to be careful if they are to reach their parents safely. What they don’t know yet is that Jewel has been captured by the Fugleman and his army of mercenaries.

With the city in the grip of terror, Goldie must find a way to be rid of the Fugleman once and for all without compromising her own morals. Even though she wants to wage this war through stealth rather than violence, she is fighting against the voice of the brutal and long-dead princess, Frisia, that is still in her head.

Path of Beasts the third book in The Keepers series starts out with as much excitement as the previous two and keeps up a swift pace from there. With the children back in Jewel, all of the loose ends that I was expecting to be tied up in the second book were tied up here instead.

As usual Tanner’s character development is realistic. Rather than shaping the characters to suit the plot; the plot is shaped to suit the characters. Some of these developments are to be expected. For instance, Goldie is as bold as she was in the first instalment but has grown mentally. Her morals have strengthened, giving the novel its driving force. Tanner does not take the easy way out with her characters, however. While I would have loved to have seen a complete turn-around from Pounce once he reached Jewel; it wasn’t a natural progression of character. He is too used to looking out for himself and Mouse to put anything else before that goal; and Path of Beasts reflects that.

Additionally to character development, the development of ideas comes into its own in Path of Beasts. In the first book, Museum of Thieves, readers are introduced to Jewel, a city filled with people who are so sheltered that they cannot defend themselves. In Path of Beasts we find a very different Jewel; one that is being smothered by invading forces. While the people of the city could revert to their former selves; submitting to powers stronger than themselves, they grow instead, developing defences that they had never needed before.

Path of Beasts is a satisfying ending to a brilliantly executed trilogy. It ties up all of the loose threads from the first two books, including one plot-line that I was expecting to stay a mystery. Having the glimpse of the future of an enlightened Jewel is a lovely, hopeful vision of the life that Goldie and her friends can share.

Path of Beasts – Lian Tanner

Allen and Unwin (October 9, 2012)

ISBN: 9781742371979

Goldie Roth is back with the second in The Keepers series, City of Lies. Danger once again threatens the city of Jewel when a child is kidnapped. Bonnie, however, is not just any child; she’s Toadspit’s little sister. So Goldie and Toadspit, the two youngest keepers, set off to track the kidnappers down.

When Toadspit, too, is captured, Goldie is left alone in to the city of Spoke where the gods are the same, but the customs couldn’t be more different. Relying on her talents in concealment, ability to lie and her nature as a thief she must make new allies if she is ever to save her friends. But not all is as it seems in the treacherous Spoke. Lies surround Goldie and the people she needs as allies might just as easily betray her for the price of a meal.

Meanwhile, in Jewel, the Museum of Dunt is growing dangerously restless with two of its keepers in peril. And the Fugleman is back, more broken and humble than before, with an offer that his sister, the Grand Protector, cannot afford to refuse.

Lian Tanner just keeps getting better. In City of Lies she pulls all of the safety nets out from under Goldie, leaving her to sink or swim on the merit of her own talents. Away from the familiarity of her own city and without her parents, Toadspit or any of the other keepers to fall back on Goldie shines like, well, gold as she navigates the confusion and perils of Spoke. Her spirit, rather than withering in the face of adversity, expands; and, while Goldie may think herself unequal to the task, she never wavers from it.

This is one of the few trilogies out there that really teaches girls that they can be strong, brave and confident. Unlike all too many others, Lian Tanner never sets up a dichotomy with her girls. Goldie is not only brilliant in contrast to the other girls in the novel. The other girls in the novel are brilliant too. While being kidnapped by two men far larger than her, ten year old Bonnie manages to fight back enough to draw blood. The Grand Protector is a woman who is smart enough to see what’s wrong with her city and ethical enough to work at fixing it. The message isn’t, ‘You can be strong as a girl, if you’re not like the other girls’. The message here is, ‘Girls are pretty flipping amazing’.

I’ll admit that when I saw that the second in The Keepers series would be set in a different city, I was apprehensive. Jewel was such a strong presence in the first book, and I wanted to go right back to it and see how it was going. With world-building that was so vivid in the first book, Museum of Thieves, Jewel was a place I wasn’t ready to leave. After having read City of Lies, I have to say that I’m glad Tanner took the risk of changing the setting. The city of Spoke is just as strong a presence as Jewel, but in a completely different way. Both cities very much take on a character of their own, but the problems of Spoke are just as compelling as those in Jewel. Spoke is a darker city, with more danger lurking in the shadows and citizens who are too worldly rather than the too ignorant citizens of Jewel.

Museum of Thieves was an incredible read, but the stakes are higher in City of Lies, the characters are brighter, the setting is more exciting. Though the series is aimed at the ten to fourteen year-old age group, this is one that anyone can read and enjoy. There’s action, adventure and magic enough for any young reader; but there’s also enough subtlety for older readers. Definitely a series I wish I had grown up with.

City of Lies – Lian Tanner

Allen & Unwin (September 27, 2011)

ISBN: 9781742379999

Lian Tanner is a children’s author and playwright. She has worked as a teacher in Australia and Papua New Guinea, a tourist bus driver, a freelance journalist, a juggler, a community arts worker, an editor and a professional actor. It took her a while to realise that all of these jobs were really just preparation for being a writer. Nowadays she lives by the beach in southern Tasmania, with a small tabby cat and lots of friendly neighbourhood dogs. She has not yet mastered the art of Concealment by the Imitation of Nothingness, but she is quite good at Camouflage.

The second book in The Keepers trilogy, City of Lies, won the Aurealis Award in 2011 for Children’s Fiction. Lian Tanner’s books are published by Allen and Unwin.

1. You do a wonderful job of portraying a world that has been protected to the point of not being able to function in a crisis. Where did you get the inspiration for that? Were you holding a mirror up to our world?

A: When I was thinking about this story, there was a lot of discussion in the Australian media about ‘bubblewrap children’, which I found interesting, because like most of my generation I had a very free-ranging childhood. I know it’s a different world now, but I think there are other ways of responding to it than over-protection, and the effect of keeping children too safe really bothers me. But it wasn’t just the media debate that brought it home to me. At the same time, there was a boy living in my street (a very safe little cul de sac where children regularly play cricket and footy in the middle of the road) whose parents worried about possible disasters so much that they hardly let him out the front gate. And on the rare occasions when he managed to escape, I noticed that he wasn’t nearly as physically competent as the other kids of his age. Nor was his judgement good. In protecting him so carefully, his parents had actually made him more vulnerable.

So those things were important as inspiration, and there was certainly a bit of mirror-holding going on – I like to have both depth and ideas in my books, so that they work on several different levels. But at the same time I thought that pushing this notion of over-protection to its natural conclusion – the guardchains – could make a really interesting and exciting story that would appeal to kids.

2 The main characters of The Keepers are thieves, and Toadspit starts off as such a hostile character. Were you worried about how they would be received by your readers?

A: Yes, I didn’t want kids to come away from the book with the idea that it was fine to go off and steal whatever they liked, just because they coveted something. In the end I used Olga Ciavolga to make it clear that there were certain rules, and that stealing was only all right if you used it for a good and selfless purpose. That seems to have struck a chord with people – those particular lines are the most frequently quoted from the book.

As for Toadspit, he has turned out to be a favourite character for many readers, so I guess his initial hostility doesn’t turn them off. I didn’t really think it would, mainly because he is also intriguing, which keeps people interested in him for long enough to start to understand why he is so hostile.

3. Lian, you studied earth sciences and have said that you draw much inspiration from the time you spend at the beach. What is it about natural environments that you find so compelling and how do they stir you, creatively?

A: I think one of the things natural environments do is provide mental and emotional space. Cities are full of things that clamour for our attention, whereas the countryside or the beach is much more restful. When I’m in the city, I find that I instinctively keep a tight hold on my physical and emotional boundaries. It’s a protective thing, even in a small city like Hobart. But on the beach, I can let go of that tight hold, I can let my thoughts swim in ever-widening circles, make odd connections, daydream. That’s a very creative state of mind!

4. Which of your fictional characters Burns Brightest in your mind and why?

A: I love them all, even the villains, but probably my favourite character is Mouse, a small mute boy who first appears in the second book, City of Lies. He tells fortunes with the help of his white mice, and has a very sweet nature, despite his hard life on the streets. I had the character of Mouse in mind for about six years before I found the right place for him, and ‘burns brightest’ really does describe him. He’s one of those people who affect the lives of those around him far more than you would expect for someone his age.