Full Circle

The Six Crowns #6

by Allan Frewin Jones

Trundle and Esmeralda are facing an impossible task. The last of the six lost crowns of the Badger Lords of Old is hidden on an island no one has ever heard of. Even if they do manage to find it, they must then set sail for a place that doesn't exist! With the crowns they have found behaving so very dangerously, Aunt Millie and the pirates breathing down their necks, and powerful magic working against them, is there any hope that they can fulfil their quest?

Genres: Animals

176 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2012

About the author

This author has published under several versions of his name, including Allan Jones, Frewin Jones, and A.F. Jones. He has also published under the pen names Sam Hutton and Steven Saunders.

Reviews

[Josiah]

Trundle Boldoak, former mild-mannered lamplighter for the citizens of Port Shiverstones, has come a long way over the five books that precede Full Circle. When fellow hedgehog Esmeralda Lightfoot—a total stranger—showed up on his doorstep to insist he accompany her on a fantastic quest, Trundle wanted no part of it. Why should he go gallivanting across the countless isles of the Sundered Lands to retrieve the lost Six Crowns of the Badgers of Power? Yet while fleeing Captain Grizzletusk's pirates and Esmeralda's duplicitous aunt Millie Rose Thorne, Trundle developed the courage to resist evil and do his part to find the crowns. As Full Circle opens, he and Esmeralda have collected five of the six, but where is the final one, the Crown of Stone? Our two adventurers need help to locate it.

Back to the isle of Widdershins they fly in their windship, the trusty Thief in the Night. At the Worshipful Guild of Observators, Trundle and Esmeralda track down the Herald Pursuivant (Percy), with whom they had left the first two crowns for safekeeping. Their newest clue directs them to an island called Sunsett, but at hearing this, Percy almost loses hope. Sunsett is believed to have been destroyed when the Sundered Lands first exploded from one central land mass into the many islands it is today. But Trundle and Esmeralda won't give up; perhaps Sunsett still exists after all. With a heavy heart Percy lends his scholarly expertise to tracking down the sixth crown, which turns out to be in a most unexpected place. Grabbing the crown and then searching for Sunsett, where the crowns must be gathered together in order to reunite the Sundered Lands, seems a lot easier than expected...until Millie Rose Thorne shows up with Grizzletusk and his pirates. Escaping immediate peril, Trundle, Esmeralda, and Percy soar through space in their windship, but will they arrive at Sunsett before the pirates?

No one has set foot on Sunsett in thousands of years, but the sun-baked land will be the final combat arena as our heroes struggle to complete their quest. Deadly traps wait to spring on the unsuspecting and greedy, traps that Trundle and his friends manage to avoid while wending their way through tunnels toward the island's core. Millie Rose Thorne, Grizzletusk, and his pirates follow, often triggering the traps that Trundle and company steered clear of, but in the end Aunt Millie and Grizzletusk won't be that easy to defeat. As the climax nears, troubling questions arise: what caused the Sundered Lands to split apart in the first place? Will reuniting the crowns on Sunsett reverse the effect, ushering in a new age? What would that mean for Trundle and Esmeralda, who left their old, unfulfilling lives to embark on a spectacular adventure? Is there something more ahead for them than a return to the humdrum of yesterday?

I can't say I love this series, but Full Circle is the best of the six books. It is logically cohesive for the most part, and introduces a few nice twists, an element that had been sorely lacking. The ultimate purpose of Trundle's quest is finally delineated, allowing us to feel more invested in the narrative. As usual, John Avon's colorful cover art is impressive, and Gary Chalk's interior illustrations lend poignancy to the final pages as we part ways with Trundle and Esmeralda for the last time. How do I rank the six books in order? After Full Circle, Sargasso Skies is second best, followed by book one, Trundle's Quest. I'll put The Ice Gate of Spyre fourth, then Fair Wind to Widdershins, and finally Fire Over Swallowhaven. The series improved over its last three books, and though Full Circle has a few spots that stretch the limits of plausibility, I think I'll rate it two and a half stars. The Six Crowns series is nowhere near the quality of Brian Jacques's Redwall, but it turned out be fairly satisfying. I'm surprised by how much I'm going to miss it.

[Malene Erika Kristensen]

Fantastisk afslutning på et dejligt eventyr.

[Firefly]

Loved this series so much. So sad it's over.

[Rachel]

I wish there had been a little more to the ending of the series, but I enjoyed it.

[Becky]

This one was the best...the ending played out well c:

[Colona Public Library]

I 've finally read this last book and is a decent end to this book series. I kinda think the plot could be more convincing that the bad guy is bad? Like, sure he blew up the world but he did it because the hedgehogs were servents to badgers and how do we know the badgers are good? Meh, im thinking too much about this. The ended is proper to what the book series is just ok, has some good ideas, simple.

Also this book series uses 'and' and 'but' to begin sentences a lot! -Ashley

[Amy]

Well, I guess it ended well enough. There were some surprises thrown in there, but at the end I was just left thinking: "so, that's it?"