In 2006 the American Library Association picked A Chalice of Wind as one of their notable children's books for that year.
[1] After seventeen-year-old Thais Allard loses her widowed father in a car crash, she is forced to leave home.
Thais soon learns that she and her twin come from a family of witches and that she possesses astonishing powers.
Critical reception to the Balefire series has been positive.
Of the first entry in the series, the School Library Journal praised Tiernan's characters[2] and Booklist wrote that the "action builds toward a tantalizing twist that will leave readers eager for future books".