In an interesting approach to presenting the beginning of the series, A Sword Named Truth is presented as a history text, penned by an anonymous author. This provides a narrator's point of view and provides the occasional explanation or exposition that would be outside of the viewpoint of a given character that might be focused on in the text and provides the ability to choose different characters to be the focus, adding more detail than a specific character might know.
Imagine a world with magic, but also with a lost history of even greater magic and a few surviving artifacts that can harness that ancient arcana and grant its power to those who can wield them. While it can be expected that nations will seek to better themselves in dealings with other nations, there are certain nations that are ruled as militaristic dictatorships, outlawing even music, on penalty of death... and these "evil nations" are in league with an otherworldly ally known as Norsunders, who use dark-magic-based rifts to transport armies in to conquer their enemies... or they did until a mage, Emras, somehow prevented rifts from ever occurring again, in a move that cost him his life and came to be known as "the Emras Defense." Without this rift magic, teleportation is generally limited to one person at a time and can be painful and disorienting... not favorable side-effects for an invading army.
The oldest nation, Sartor, was generally revered by the other nations that practiced light-magic and shunned dark-magic, which might be why it was targeted by the Norsunders and ensorcelled in an enchantment that froze the entire nation in time for a hundred years. Had it not been for the actions of a little girl named Liere, who managed to break the enchantment with the use of a magical artifact and the help of an otherworldly being, it would have remained frozen for much longer.
As the girl who saved the world, Liere has been given the name "Sartora," which is meant as a great honor and compliment, but it grates on her, since she sees herself as a stupid child who happened to accidentally save the world once and fears she will be called upon to repeat the trick. If it seems odd that the savior of the world was a little girl, it's not as odd as you might think; there is a spell known as the "Child Spell" that princes and princesses often opt to take (or have it forced upon them), which keeps them from appearing to age and keeps them of a child-like mind, tending toward childish thoughts and ambitions, while allowing them to learn skills, such as magic and tactics. As a result, most of the main characters are, in fact, under the Child Spell. Since they are all, essentially and functionally, children, they are treated as children by adults. This leads many of them to share a distrust of the adults who run things and make all the decisions. This is part of the reason behind the forming of the Alliance...
The series Rise of the Alliance is referring to this alliance - whose beginning is chronicled, here, in A Sword Called Truth, explaining how a motley crew of child leaders from all over the world banded together to form an alliance to fight against the Norsunders and to protect each other.
Most of these children are practitioners of light magic (if they practice magic at all). Two of the boys, Jilo and Senrid, however, each hail from nations that practice dark magic and are dark-magic practitioners, themselves. Additionally, they have both suffered abuse at the hands of their families. This makes it a bit difficult for them to understand and relate to these light-magic users. Hibern also grew up surrounded by dark-magic, but she yearned to study light-magic and was outcast for her troubles. Then, there is a gaggle of Mearsieans, who are, truly, the core group that think there should be an alliance, but whose tactics tend toward moves such as magically forcing the enemy to dance or summoning a giant boot to kick them over or hitting them with enchanted pies to the face and mainly enjoy hanging out together in their secret underground hideout.
There are a good many characters, so I won't get into them all, but the 650-page length provides enough time for these characters to unfold and develop a good bit as you go along. I enjoyed the read and the characters are entertaining, but it definitely is not a standalone book; it doesn't end in a "to be continued," but the ending didn't seem to have much of a "bang." Then again, this is just the first book in the series and it does manage to bring the world to life while telling a story. I don't know how much I would recommend A Sword named Truth as a standalone book, but the world is interesting and I am quite anxious to see what the second installment brings.
