The Blue Sword by Robin Mckinley

The Blue Sword by Robin Mckinley

When Harry Crewe's father dies, she leaves her Homeland to travel east, to Istan, the last outpost of the Homelander empire, where her elder brother is stationed.

Harry is drawn to the bleak landscape of the northeast frontier, so unlike the green hills of her Homeland. The desert she stares across was once a part of the great kingdom of Damar, before the Homelanders came from over the seas. Harry wishes she might cross the sands and climb the dark mountains where no Homelander has ever set foot, where the last of the old Damarians, the Free Hillfolk, still live. She hears stories that the Free Hillfolk possess strange powers -- that they work magic -- that it is because of this that they remain free of the Homelander sway.

When the king of the Free Hillfolk comes to Istan to ask that the Homelanders and the Hillfolk set their enmity aside to fight a common foe, the Homelanders are reluctant to trust his word, and even more reluctant to believe his tales of the Northerners: that they are demonkind, not human.

Harry's destiny lies in the far mountains that she once wished to climb, and she will ride to the battle with the North in the Hill-king's army, bearing the Blue Sword, Gonturan, the chiefest treasure of the Hill-king's house and the subject of many legends of magic and mystery.

Robin McKinley (www.robinmckinley.com and robinmckinleysblog.com) has won various awards and citations for her writing, including the Newbery Medal for The Hero and the Crown and a Newbery Honor for The Blue Sword, both about the magical country of Damar. Her other books include Chalice; Dragonhaven; two novel-length retellings of the fairy tale Beauty and the Beast, Beauty and Rose Daughter; Deerskin, which was inspired by the Perrault fairy tale Donkeyskin; a retelling of the Robin Hood legend, The Outlaws of Sherwood; Spindle s End, a retelling of Sleeping Beauty; and two volumes of Tales of Elemental Spirits, Fire and Water (with Peter Dickinson). Her Imaginary Lands won the World Fantasy Award for best anthology and her novel Sunshine won the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature.
Robin lives in England with her husband, the English writer Peter Dickinson, two hellhounds, a hellterror, an 1897 Steinway upright, and too many rosebushes.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780141309750
ISBN 10	014130975X
Title	The Blue Sword
Author	Robin Mckinley
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Penguin Putnam Inc
Year published	2000-10-01
Number of pages	304
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.