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I read this series around 9 years ago and honestly, I don't remember a thing about the plot. At any rate, I remember enjoying it. I'm not even certain that it was a trilogy, but it was definitely a series and all the books were published before 2006 thereabouts.

So what I do remember is that the main character was a girl and she had this slightly older mentor (male, and his name might have started with a 'C'). I have no idea what they did or if they had a quest (they probably did though) but I do remember that at one point she was trapped in a place or castle in a very cold, snowy environment. In fact, I'm fairly certain that the cover of the second (?) book was a very wintry one of the girl in said cold environment.

I also remember that at the end of the series, she didn't end up getting romantically involved with her mentor even though young me was desperately rooting for them. I was rather upset about that. It was also one of those fantasy series with an appendix of sorts at the back expanding on the world and briefly expanding on the background of the guy, if I'm not wrong. The appendix also talked about the girl and her various names, like a prophecy name or something.

There might also have been a tree involved somewhere, but I might be mixing that up so don't take my word for it about the tree. Anyway, I know this is about as vague as it possibly gets, but I'm giving it a try anyway!

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    If you don't remember anything about the plot, how do you remember that it was a fantasy trilogy? What fantasy elements do you remember?
    – phantom42
    Sep 15, 2015 at 16:52
  • "at the end of the series, she didn't end up getting romantically involved with her mentor": glad to hear it - I should hope not! He's so OLD!
    – Rand al'Thor
    Sep 15, 2015 at 17:08

3 Answers 3

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This sounds like it could be the Pellinor series by Alison Croggon.

The main character is a girl named Maerad, and she travels around with an older male mentor named Cadvan. The series is a retelling of the so-called "Riddle of the Treesong". I only read the first book (and then couldn't bear it any more: far too many ancient fantasy tropes and hardly any originality), but apparently much of the second book is set in cold wintry domains, and here's its front cover:

cold place

The girl Maerad is a long-prophesied saviour of the world (yawn). The first book has appendices expanding on the world and its background, very realistically making it sound as though the story is actually real-world mythology, like a novel version of found-footage films (which I thought was pretty cool).

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    Additional bonus, according to Wikipedia, the second book involves "Treesong" as a plot point.
    – FuzzyBoots
    Sep 15, 2015 at 16:58
  • That's it! You're absolutely right, thank you so much! Considering I read it when I was 12, I'm not surprised that it's actually horribly cliched, but it's still exciting to find out what the series is called after all. This was a lot quicker than I thought it would be, thanks again!
    – Esther
    Sep 15, 2015 at 17:01
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    @Esther Happy to help! :-) Main character being a girl with an older male mentor whose name began with C was enough for me to get it, and the rest I could confirm from Wikipedia.
    – Rand al'Thor
    Sep 15, 2015 at 17:07
  • Spoilers: It's a quarter and she does end up involved with her mentor. Sep 16, 2015 at 0:28
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Is it possible that you're discussing the Arrows of the Queen series by Mecedes Lackey? It follows Talia, a new Herald of Valdemar. In the second book, Arrow's Flight, she's trapped in a shelter in the midst of a snowstorm with Kris, a slightly older Herald, and he teaches her proper control of her gift, which is the rare power of Empathy. She does get romantically entangled with him and is conflicted over it, particularly since Kris's best friend, Dirk, is in love with her.

I don't remember anything in there about a tree, but you said that was an iffy detail. Also, Lackey was known for including a list of filk songs and other details in the back of the third book of her trilogies.

The cover I'm most familiar with doesn't quite match the wintry scene, being a fairly generic background, but there are other covers and the rest of the details seem to match.

Arrow's Flight cover Another edition with more snow

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The description made me think of Cherryh's "The Paladin", though I don't think all the details fit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paladin

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  • Can you add some more details here? What points match, what points don't match?
    – Möoz
    Sep 16, 2015 at 0:10
  • While we already have an accepted answer, other answers that match the question are useful to have because they may help others looking for a similar book.
    – FuzzyBoots
    Sep 16, 2015 at 1:03
  • In The Paladin, the female protagonist does become romantically involved with the main male character.
    – Monty Wild
    Sep 16, 2015 at 3:18

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