First Test by Tamora Pierce (1999)

I picked this up at the audio book store, because the author was recommended by one of my former Latvian school students as a good young adult fantasy author. It was a nice story with a strong young female character Keladry, who struggles to prove herself in the otherwise all male knighthood training program at the castle. After all the heavy and often unappealing adult stuff I've been reading, this was great.