Will of the Empress by Tamora Pierce (amazon)

I seem to be on a big YA fantasy book kick this month. I guess it fits the bill for light summer reading. Will of the Empress revisits the characters from the Winding Circle series. I read the first four books, but I didn’t read the second series. So although I am familiar with the characters, I’m lacking a bit of the backstory.
It seems like everyone is all grown up, and went their seperate ways. Daja, Tris, and Briar return from their adventures to see Sandry. While they were apart, everyone seemed to have horrific adventures and they seem to be burdened by their memories - I guess all of this happened in the series that I didn’t read. The book opens with the discovery that Daja, Tris, and Briar can’t go home to Winding Circle, but they don’t want to live in the palace of Sandry’s uncle. The four are no longer linked by a psychic bond, and Sandry misses what was lost while failing to understand that the other three might have memories they don’t wish to share. Sandry is summoned by the Empress to deal with her family’s estate in Namorn, and her uncle asks Tris, Daja, and Briar to accompany her in her journey.
When Sandry arrives to visit the Empress she starts to discover the hidden motives for her visit, and she begins to learn about the responsibilities of nobility. Does everyone else start to heal from their psychic trauma? Does everyone have to band together to win a great battle in the end? There’s a subplot that is GLBT friendly, as one of the girls discovers that she likes other girls. The story is fairly predictable, but the book was an ok read. It wasn’t Pierce’s strongest work, but I tend to prefer her other series. I’m sure Pierce fans who have been pining for a new book will be happy to read it, but I thought it wasn’t as strong as the Trickster books that were published recently.