Thirteen Orphans by Jane Lindskold

Brenda Morris has always been close to her Dad, and she's enjoying spending time with him. But when an attack on him in a Boston Car Park robs him of something he's always had, she suddenly finds herself thrust into a new world where nothing is the same as before.

Because her father is one of a group known as the "Thirteen Orphans", magicians from another world who embody and channel the power of the thirteen spirits of the Chinese Zodiac, and including the power of the Noble Cat. Brenda's trip with her father was supposed to allow him to tell her the truth about her bloodline and abilities, and to allow her to inherit a special Mahjongg set that was taken long ago from from the other world. There is one for each animal, and using the mahjongg set allows the orphans and/or their heirs to both do magic and forecast the future.

Even without his power as the Rat, Brenda's father still has the Mahjongg set and takes her to a friend of his named Pearl Bright, an old movie star, to learn how to use the Mahjongg set. Pearl embodies the power and majesty of the Tiger, and has quite a bit of magical power as well.

In her time in Pearl's house. Brenda bonds not only with Pearl, but her other student, Riprap, who embodies the power of the Dog. His father was a combat medic in Vietnam who was killed over there, but arranged to pass on his own Mahjongg set to his heir (who also has military experience). And while Riprap has a ghetto name, he's an honest, likable young man who works as a bouncer in hip-hop clubs, hence his name.

But as the other orphans come under attack by oriental-appearing people with the same powers and magic as the orphans themselves possess, it's obvious that when their ancestors fled the other world of magic, someone wasn't happy with them. And now, the other members of those same lineages have returned to try and steal back the Mahjongg sets and appease the emperor of the other world. But can the Orphans and their heirs fight off attacks by people who come from a world where magic is the norm, and their opponents are more magically adept than they are?

Even before I read "Fruits Basket", I'd been interested in the Chinese Zodiac, and this book combined the Chinese Zodiac with modern-day fantasy in a way I found hard to resist. I love Jane Lindskold's writing, and her Firekeeper series was both excellent and fascinating. Here, she's pretty much outdone herself in making another strong series which makes me look forward to reading more.

It's very good, but it's certainly not a perfect book. The first part of the book is pretty much information being dumped on the reader, but even for an infodump, it's well done, with characters who really do need to know the information that the readers also need, so there is a good excuse for us to be hearing all of it. But this is a story in which characters don't stay static. Much like people in the normal workaday world, they change and not all the "good" characters always agree with each other. Even the most mature of the orphans have their issues to deal with, like the Rooster, who is very powerful in magic, but who wants to be able to fight physically as well.

For me, some of the most affecting parts of the book is what happens to the Orphans who have their memories stolen. Not all their memories, just the memories of being orphans and doing magic. Seeing characters, in many cases characters we have grown to know, suddenly missing a great part of what makes them what they are, I found very disturbing and even somewhat frightening. And Brenda's falling for one of the attackers seems terribly dangerous and not well-thought out on her part- but this is part of the character's changing I was talking about.

Where the sequel will take the characters, I have no idea, but I can't wait to read it and find out what happens. Hopefully now that we have the information about the background of the orphans and their world, the infodumping can be gotten out of the way quickly and the real story begin. Highly recommended.