Diane is a thirteen year-old orphaned girl with an extraordinary talent for communicating with animals. After meeting Onua, the Queen's Horse Mistress, she's taken under the woman's wing and along the way, they discover that Daine's talent with animals is something more - it's wild magic. Under the tutelage of the sorceror Numair, the teenager begins to learn how to control her magic and deepens her friendships with "two-leggers" - humans. Well the first half of the book was somewhat entertaining even if the plot wasn't very good or even the characters being particularly interesting. However, three of my four favorites returned from the Song Of The Lioness quartet; they are Alanna, King Jonathan and George. Naturally, Thom didn't return since no one resurrected him and anyway, I don't know if he would even want to come back. Duke Roger is the only one to have ever been resurrected. And even though Thom doesn't return, his legacy continues in a way since his nephew is named after him. Finally, this is the first book in the Immortals quartet. I would advise you to skip this series and go read its predecessor the Song Of The Lioness quartet if you haven't already done so. On a side note, the other books in this series, which I'm not going to review, are respectfully, Wolf-Speaker, Emperor Mage and The Realms Of The Gods.