The Blue Sword (Newbery Honor Roll)

Summary: Harry is a Homelander, a part of a group that has been colonizing a new land. The Homelanders have a tense relationship with the natives of that land, the Damarians. During a diplomatic mission, the king of the Damarians kidnaps Harry, and as she tries to find a new life among a new

Show More

people, she also learns she is heir to a legend that can bring the two groups together.

Review: This is a classic in young adult fantasy. I remember in grade six, another class read this book for a project and I was really jealous because I wanted to read it too. Well, now I have, and I think overall it’s a pretty good book. It does interesting things with the rarely explored subject of colonialism in fantasy novels, and how the colonizer and the colonized interact. It admirably avoids racist implications, and is actually a subversion of the trope where the Sheik kidnaps the blonde, blue-eyed woman and makes her his slave.

However, I’m not too fond of stories where people do great things just because it is their destiny to do so, and I’m afraid that was the case with Harry. She wasn’t a weak character, but nothing in her ever made it believable that she would be the one to carry Lady Aerin’s torch and become a great warrior. I mean, yes, she does have a learning curve (not all novels do, unfortunately), but for a girl who has never really fought to suddenly defeat the king in combat? It felt too easy. I wanted to see her struggle more.

The same with her acceptance of Damarian culture. Harry starts the novel as a bit of an outcast from her own culture, which makes it easier for her to become Damarian. But with her quick change, I think we lose what could have been a more poignant exploration of what it is like to go from one culture to another. Harry never really had a moment where she was too alienated or questioned Damarian morals or practices. I am a first-generation immigrant, so I thought her experience was somewhat idealized and unrealistic.

Also, I wish we could have learned more about the Northerners. They were the bad guys that the Homelanders and the Damarians teamed up against, but sometimes it felt like they were just a scapegoat, conveniently evil so that they don’t have to be subject to the same cultural analysis that the Damarians were treated with.

And I never fell in love with either Harry or Corlath, and they were the main characters. They were certainly better than some characters I have read, but they didn’t get me excited to read more.

Conclusion: An even-handed exploration of culture clashes and imperialism, but there were some things that kept it from being fantastic rather than merely good.

Show Less

I have noticed that some of the best fantasy stories rely on an interesting device; they start out rather mundanely, in a mundane setting with a rather mundane though interesting protagonist. Then they move the protagonist–and the reader–into the fantastic realm where most of the adventure

Show More

takes place. Sometimes the move is sudden, a matter of stepping through the looking glass or into a fairy ring. But some storytellers take their time, dipping their toes, absently wading, getting us deeper till we find ourselves immersed without any sense of transition. Only at the end, when we close the book, do we realize how far from reality the clever writer has taken us. Robin McKinley’s The Blue Sword is this kind of story.

I first read it back in high school, and it was years before I realized how clever McKinley had been. At its heart it’s an epic fantasy–the story of a faded kingdom standing against an evil invader. There is a heroic king and a dark lord. There are prophecies, wild magics, battles, an enchanted sword. And there is a young girl name Harry Crewe. And the opening lines are about orange juice.

She scowled at her glass of orange juice. To think that she had been delighted when she first arrived here–was it only three months ago?–with the prospect of fresh orange juice every day.

Harry was born in Homeland, a cool, forested isle very obviously England. Her mother died when she was young, so she grew up a bit of a tomboy, and when her father died she had only her brother Richard, now a junior officer in Her Majesty’s Service, to depend upon. And Richard is stationed at a distant fort in Daria, at the borders of Homeland’s empire. Fortunately, the fort’s Resident and his wife, Sir Charles and Lady Amelia, are childless and perfectly happy to bring Harry to stay with them at the Residence. Of course hot and dusty Daria is quite different from cool and green Homeland, and Harry is homesick.

McKinley goes to great lengths, using Harry, to establish how very mundane and English Homelanders are,and how mundane the desert town of Istan and its fort are. It’s not our world, she seems to say, but it’s not so very different. They have trains, and guns, and orange juice. It might as well be North Africa.

Then she begins nudging us into the water. Sir Charles is expecting a visit from an emissary of the Free Hillfolk, the wild people just beyond their borders, last remnants of the Old Kingdom. When Harry meets Corlath, their king, she experiences a strange shock. Corlath brings a warning, of danger from beyond the mountain passes, preparing to sweep away Hillfolk and Homelanders alike. When a well-meaning Sir Charles can’t help him, Corlath and his company departs, but, goaded by his royal magic–which he sees as something of a curse–Corlath returns in the dead of night, passing through walls and stealing away a dreaming Harry. And so the adventure begins.

Things get much more fantastical from here out, of course, but Robin McKinley preserves the spell she spent so much time weaving. Magic, even when obvious, is never understood: it’s magical. With Harry, the reader is thrown into a world of miracles and terrible wonder, and McKinley deftly avoids all the cliches that might develop. And this is the payoff; through all her adventures and changes, Harry remains Harry, the young woman with whom we have already so strongly identified. She is the wardrobe door, and her wonder is our wonder, her tears our tears, her victory, our victory, and her happiness, our happiness. The story ends almost as domestically as it begins, and, closing the book I can’t stop smiling.

Show Less

I want to say that this is a follow-up to The Hero and the Crown although this book was written first and Hero is actually deemed a prequel. I think I've always read the books out of order and I think they make much more sense that way.

Hari is the heroine of this story, but much of what happens to

Show More

her is tied into the story of Aerin and I feel like you understand more after the fact. Some will read them the way they are written and appreciate the foreshadowing and the connections that you make when you finally find out what everyone in the Blue Sword was talking about. But I prefer to know ahead of time. Plus, if you read Blue first you know what happens at the end of Hero and that ruins it for me.

Anyway, this is another fanastic book from McKinley. Her prose is impeccable in this one as well (though she doesn't do the flashbacks, as she did in Hero). I love the relationship between Hari and Corlath, the supporting characters that surrounded them and the amazing story that they create. It takes the classic theme of someone taken out of their own world and discovering that they have a special destiny to a whole new level.

Once again, I can't recommend it highly enough. I already want to read them both again! Oh, and Luthe is back in this one (I just love him so much)!

Show Less

The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley is set in the same world as The Hero and the Crown, which I enjoyed when I read it a couple of years ago. It's been on my wishlist for a really long time, and I decided to give in and buy myself a copy. Unfortunately, I didn't end up enjoying it as much.

The Blue

Show More

Sword features Angharad "Harry" Crewe, a quasi-British ("Homelander") impoverished noblewoman who finds herself living in a fort town on the edge of the Homelander empire after the death of her parents. Although her life is pretty boring, she realises she has come to love the harsh lands of her new home. She's interested in the native (Damarian/Hillfolk) culture and language, but everyone around her considers it irrelevant as they are considered barbarians, so she doesn't learn much about them.

Then, she catches the eye of the king of the Damarians, and he is compelled by his magic to kidnap her. She turns out to be the key to saving both Damar and her own people from the real barbarians - the Northerners, that are descended from demons.

I can't review this book without spoilers, so my apologies.

*** WARNING: EXTENSIVE SPOILERS FROM HERE ONWARDS ***

I had a pretty hard time with this book for a few different reasons.

THE PROTAGONIST
Generally I love quiet-but-awesome characters, but I was never really able to connect with Harry. She just seemed mostly passive, but stubborn whenever the plot needed her to be. For example, when she's kidnapped, she is a bit scared in the beginning, but doesn't actually react to it that much, even though she has no idea what the Damarians want, and she can't speak their language. She doesn't even have a single thought of escape - it's almost like she's an observer in her own life. But then she gets utterly convinced that she needs to fight for Damar and is incredibly passionate about that. It just doesn't seem like the same person - unless she feels utterly useless at home and is just glad that someone wants her, and is willing to do whatever she needs to do to hold on to that. But that's not a very pleasant or heroic characterisation. In any case, even if Harry is a perfectly likeable person, it didn't show through in the book for me.

THE MARY SUE
In The Inheritance: And Other Stories, Robin Hobb says that in the worst of [fantasy] stories, the magic and the mantle of being a hero is bestowed without effort by or cost to the protagonist. I tend to agree with her, and this is a large part of why I didn't like the story of The Blue Sword. Harry is unremarkable (she's a bit withdrawn and cold) when she's kidnapped, but then reveals herself to have incredibly strong magic, learns the Damarian language to fluency in a couple of weeks, masters the native fighting skills and beats every single warrior in the trials with six weeks of practice, wields a mythical sword that is the most treasured relic of the Damarians, single handedly defeats the enemy by dropping a mountain on them, discovers the long lost healing uses of her magic, marries the king, and commences diplomatic relations between the Homelanders and the Damarians. All in about 200 pages. What does she give up to achieve this? Nothing.

THE CULTURAL DYNAMICS
At first glance, this book seems to be about subverting the colonial idea that the Damarian "natives" were barbaric and uncivilised, by having a protagonist that has "gone native" by fighting for Damar and choosing to settle there and adopt their culture. But the Damarian civilisation regards another one (the Northerners) as similarly barbaric and uncivilised, and that is never questioned, by Harry or anyone else. Instead, everyone agrees that they are utter evil and must be vanquished - we don't even meet a single Northerner in the book, except in battle. This really annoyed me, and I'm even totally ignoring the "native civilisation needs a white coloniser girl to come save them" issue.

I understand that this is a young adult book and isn't as complex as general fantasy, but this is still no excuse.

Show Less

In my reviews of Robin McKinley's other books, I have described her writing as gentle, pleasant, charming, graceful, cozy. In this, her third publication, she abandons the fairytale roots and lush woodland settings of Beauty and The Door in the Hedge for windswept deserts and invading demon armies,

Show More

yet somehow she manages to retain that sense of coziness and domesticity, so that it is not surprising to hear people refer to The Blue Sword as a comfort read.

Our heroine, Angharad or—as she prefers to be called—Harry Crewe, is an orphan who has left the Homeland to live with Sir Charles and Lady Amelia at an outpost in Daria, a colony of the Homelander empire where her brother Richard is stationed with the army. Unlike most of her countrymen, Harry is drawn to this barren and strange land. But all is not well there. The Hillfolk, last remnants of the ancient kingdom of Damar, come to warn the Homelanders of a great army of Northerners marching on their border. The well-meaning Homelanders cannot help, and most (like Sir Charles) are skeptical of this so-called threat, but the meeting has another fated but unexpected outcome. For when the golden-eyed king of the Hillfolk, Corlath, sees Harry, his kelar—the magic in his Hill blood—directs him to steal her away. So Harry finds herself swept off and burdened with a destiny she never expected.

One doesn't really read Robin McKinley for fast-moving plots, and it took about half the book before I really became involved, even though I'd read it before, as a preteen. Those who dislike lengthy descriptions would best look elsewhere as well. Where she excels is in her creation of imaginary cultures, her soothing narrative voice, and the little touches that make her worlds come to life. There is not a person, a landscape, a building, an animal in this book that I could not see as clearly as if I were there myself.

Harry is, refreshingly, not conventionally beautiful or "sexy," nor does she have the trademark clumsiness that has become such a hallmark of YA heroines. (I'm looking at you, Bella Swan.) Instead, she is oversized, lanky, sensible, and dreamy. She is far more unique and memorable than all the women of Spindle's End put together, which is the last McKinley book I read. Corlath is fascinating too, both as a person and as a ruler, but their romance is so subtle as to be almost nonexistent—and certainly not racy, which I remembered it being for some reason. Ha. Luthe plays a much smaller part than I recalled as well, to the point where one questions why he's in the book in the first place. He dispenses a little wisdom but doesn't advance the plot really. My favorite characters weren't actually human: Aerin's faithful Hill horse Tsornin, or Sungold, and the hunting cat Narknon. McKinley's animals are always winning.

The clash of cultures is what really makes the book live and breathe, mostly because they parallel our own history. The expanding Homelander empire is clearly modeled after Imperialist Great Britain, while Damar distinctly resembles North Africa. It's fun to have a world where guns and Edwardian manners meet ancient traditions and magic.

The book really begins to heat up as Harry disobeys orders and goes her own way, and the Northerners approach. The final face-off is thrilling, but Thurra, the sorcerer-king of the North, is built up as so powerful (while remaining veiled in mystery) that it's hard to accept he'd be so easily defeated. And when I turned the last page, I felt strangely empty. The book takes us to a fascinating new world, but very little happens; it could easily be half its length and still retain all the major plot points and character development. When I first read it, years ago, I had just finished its Newbery Medal-winning prequel, The Hero and the Crown, and I found it disappointing in comparison. Though I did enjoy The Blue Sword, I now see why. Luckily I read the books in publication order this time, and thus still have Hero to look forward to.

Show Less

This novel has elements that are familiar - the heroine spirited away in the middle of the night by the handsome "savage", the mystical sword with magical powers, a battle between good and evil. But the way the novel is written makes all the difference in the world. I was captured by the world of

Show More

Damar, the first time I read "The Blue Sword". I loved the horsemanship, the magic, the relationships, the descriptions. Ms. McKinley writes densely, but because of that, everything comes alive with texture and detail. Every time I re-read the story of Harry, I'm spirited away again to her world.

Show Less

The land of Damar is beautiful, from the orange groves of the south to the harsh desert and far-off mountains of the north. Angharad falls in love, even though it is not socially correct for the Homeland conquerers to come to love the land. But how can Harry do otherwise, when the sunrise stirs her

Show More

blood and the mountains on the horizon just ask to be explored?

Show Less

The Blue Sword is a Newbery Honor Book (1983) but the fact that this book didn't win the full award is a crime (worse, it lost out to Dicey's Song--ugh!). Still, I'm not sure why Newbery honored this one before its predecessor, The Hero and the Crown. Maybe the two were originally published

Show More

backwards? Yet it's hard to find the original publication dates because they've both been reprinted so many times.

Whatever the case may be, this book is no washout of a sequel!
Here's the story:
"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"

Now forget the fact that her name is Harry (because you'll be SO enthralled by the book that you will), and let's focus on the fact that this a medieval book SET IN THE DESERT.
YEA!
IT'S FANTASTIC!

Now I don't know anyone who doesn't love a good story about capture, but regardless of your preference, READ THIS. It's not necessary to read the prequel first, but it'll certainly put a smile on your face (like it did mine) when you read a snippet about Aerin in The Blue Sword; it'll make you feel like McKinley is referencing a piece of your own culture.

Harry is just as strong as Aerin, but special in her own way. The customs that she's introduced to through the "enemy" king, Corlath, are really cool. Because you, the reader, know nothing about it, you go through captivity and discovery with Harry; talk about throwing you into a story!

The horses (who everyone grows to love) are all descendants of Aerin's darling horse, so they're pretty awesome in this book, too.

I have not only reread this story several times, but I plan on doing so several times more, as well.
It is timeless.
It is unique.
It is fantastic.
And writing this had made me want to read it AGAIN (for the like, billionth time). Seriously. Let me go pull my perfect copy down from its sacred, always-dust-free, and prominent perch...

This review is an entry on my blog.

Show Less

I first read The Hero and the Crown and adored it until I read The Blue Sword, which I loved even more. A great strong heroine, a quiet romance with both a king and his country, horses, giant cats, magic, battles, friendship...what's not to like? I reread this book more often than almost any other

Show More

out of pure joy.

Show Less

Clunky. Starts out as Kipling-lite, with a young woman travelling to the far flung outpost of a mighty empire, where she ends up dancing with young officers on station. Then she goes native, almost without noticing. Throughout the second half characters speak at great length, and pompously

Show More

(occasionally jocularly), about nothing. Even in the direst situations, they never seem to have any urge to get down to business.

What this book does offer is lifestyle porn. First, our heroine lives the Kipling life, then she lives a thrilling nomadic existence in tents and the occasional castle, waited on by many servants. She also learns to ride an excellent horse without a bridle and only the most rudimentary saddle and get to take performance-enhancing drugs before an athletic competition.

Show Less

This Newbery Honor Book should appeal to most fantasy lovers and especially to young adults. The characters are interesting and well developed, the mythical kingdom presented in a way that the reader comes to see it as “real” with a history and a presence. Maps would have been useful to help

Show More

follow the action, but the descriptions were so well done that I could nearly see the map in my head. The heroine of the story must learn “from scratch” about this kingdom and in the process we get to know it very well. I liked it well enough to want to read the prequel, The Hero and the Crown. As a YA book I highly recommend it and give it 4 stars.

Show Less

When Harry Crewe's (don't ask her real first name) parents die, she has to move closer to her brother Richard, which means becoming the ward of Lady Amelia and Sir Charles. She falls in love with this wild Hill country and becomes embroiled in the political climate when Corlath, king of the

Show More

Damarians, comes to parley with Sir Charles. Corlath's magic won't let him forget her, however, so he kidnaps her knowing she has some sort of part to play in the coming war with the Northerners.

I have no real complaints: the characters were interesting (especially Corlath), the story well told. But I never felt fully invested in the story, nor did I feel compelled to read if the book were not already in my hands.

Show Less

A childhood favorite. A young woman finds magic, adventure and romance in a magical mountain kingdom.

I wish she’d write more books in this universe. Daria is basically Afghanistan at the time of the Raj. Quazi Britain to the south and demons (sorry Russia) to the north.

It’s a wonderfully

Show More

realized world. Full of layers of texture and a sense of historical depth.

And Angahard, or Harry as she prefers to be called, is a wonderfully restless girl dream. As a girl, I wanted to steal away. Be given a beautiful horse like sunlight. Discover magic in my heritage. Duel on horseback. Have an adventure. Have this adventure in this place.

But really, reading it in a book is so much tidier and less dusty.

Show Less

Robin McKinley (along with Tamora Pierce), was one of the first to write very strong female protagonists in fantasy novels. This has been one of my favorites since first discovering Robin McKinley in sixth grade. Harry Crewe is a stubborn, strong, tall, unfeminine orphan who is shipped to the

Show More

Homeland colony Damar. There she catches the eye of the king of the Hillfolk, not because of her beauty, but because she possesses a certain magical gift that is inherited from the Damarian royal bloodline. Harry is kidnapped by the Damarians and trained into a woman warrior - and falls in love with the Damarians and the king along the way. It is adventure, romance, and a strong, fierce heroine - just what every twelve year old girl loves. Anyone who loves the Tamora Pierce novels will love this as well.

Show Less

Loved this book. Great characters. Terrific world building. One of the best books I've read recently. Really something bewyond just a swords and sorcery book. I'm going to read some of her other books.

It was wonderful.

Angharad, or Harry as she is known by most, is sent to live with her brother on the Damarian continent, after her father's death. Even though she is being treated very well by a childless family, she feels out of place. Then, out of the blue, she is kidnapped by the Damarian king, who had come to

Show More

warn the Homelanders of the pending invasion of the evil Northerners. Harry must learn to live in their society and fight an evil enemy that she has never seen before. She also must make a choice to betray the man she loves in order to save him and his country from the invaders. This is an obvious fantasy novel, however it does contain some more modern elements along with the magic, magic swords, and castles. The Homelanders have guns, which we find out don't work around Damarians. The story is linear, following Harry through her short stay in the Homelander Fort, to her life and training as a Damarian Warrior, to finally her battle to save Damar from the Northerns. Like Aerin from The Hero and the Crown, Harry doesn't fit in with normal society (Homelander) and sometimes even feels out of place at Damar. Like Aerin, she must find her own place. The story has overlying themes of loyal, honor, and betrayal which are evident in almost all fantasy books... and again, good triumphs over evil. I would recommend this book to 4th graders and up.

Show Less

It has been decades since I read this book. I wanted it to be as magical as I remembered it being and it was! Harry is such a strong character and finds she is stronger and more capable than she suspected.

Damar is also a complex and interesting world with a deeper history that is hinted at. I

Show More

loved exploring that world with Harry. The book kept drawing me in.

Anyone who likes fantasy would most likely enjoy this book. As for me, onward to The Hero and the Crown!

Show Less

This is one of those books I wish teenage me would have read as I know I would have absolutely loved it back then. The story features a strong female protagonist who survives a kidnapping and turns her circumstances around when she learns she's the chosen one and proceeds to save the world. She

Show More

gets a special horse, a magic sword, has a jaguar-type cat as a companion and in general kicks ass. Yeah, teenage me would have been in heaven. 30-something me was charmed and sees the foundation of what will become many modern YA fantasy tropes. 80s fantasy can have that feel sometimes.

This book is beautifully written. You do have to watch out though as the story sometimes switches POV mid-chapter without any warning. I wasn't expecting it the first time and had to reread the section. It is easy to get used to though. I enjoyed the descriptive passages quite a lot and the world building gave just enough detail without being overwhelming. I greatly enjoyed the action scenes, especially Harry's training.

While technically The Blue Sword is the first in the Damar duology it works just fine as a standalone book. The adventure is fully resolved by the end and all loose ends are wrapped up. This was a fun read.

Show Less

Four stars for what it is meant to be, and three stars for my particular situation. For what it is, it is a beautifully written story about fate and friendship. The horses are beautiful, and it has magic, mystery, battles, and splintered societies. For me, I think I am too old for this book. If I

Show More

had read it when it was gifted to me (15 years ago or more - it's been sitting on my shelf for a while), I would have loved it more. Otherwise, all the focus on horses took me out of the story and reminded me of being a horse-loving tween. Reading this book right after reading Left Hand of Darkness dulled the story's culture clash. I enjoyed the story, and read it quickly, but I am not as sympathetic to the tomboy-ish heroine - even a twist on that motif - as I once was. A saving grace, though, is that she wasn't very tomboyish, just unsettled by something deep inside called fate.

Show Less

Outlander Harry Crewe, new to their newly colonized homestead in Damar, feels a connection to the deserts beyond her new home…a connection that she doesn’t understand until she meets—and is taken by—the Damarian king, Corlath. For Harry is part of a prophecy that tells of a female

Show More

warrior’s destiny to save Damar from their enemies. In doing so, Harry becomes a part of a culture that’s strange and mysteriously familiar at the same time, and cannot even begin to comprehend the extent to which her legacy will be imprinted on Damarian history.

Well, they don’t really write high fantasy as they used to, now do they? There has to be a reason that Robin McKinley’s THE BLUE SWORD, first published in the 1980s, is still being widely read and adored, and that is because it is arguably the absolute best in its genre, an unmatched blend of strong characters, political intrigue, and quite simply the best damn fantasy world ever imagined and written.

It’s a little strange for me to read THE BLUE SWORD for the first time, nearly ten years after I picked up The Hero and the Crown and read it to pieces for about four years straight, it having been my favorite book in middle school. THE BLUE SWORD was written before The Hero and the Crown. I can hardly wrap my mind around that! The depiction of the Damarian landscape is incredible: ranging from endless red deserts to the hidden valleys and villages within the mountains. Robin McKinley’s language is not quite lyrical, per se, but there is a certain hypnotic rhythm that her descriptions possess. That, combined with the scope of the worldbuilding—the politics, myths, fashions, traditions, everyday duties—is entrancing. McKinley inspires awe in readers.

Harry, of course, serves for many as the blueprint of the admirable fantasy heroine. True, at times it feels like the mysterious magic of Damar is carrying her along, instead of her leading it. But her magnanimity, her determination to succeed even as she does not completely understand what’s happening to her, is inarguably admirable. Corlath’s appeal, I think, comes less from his specific characteristics, and more from his inexplicable status as the archetypal complement to Harry’s heroine role. However little or much we perceive of Harry and Corlath’s personalities, beliefs, or desires, however, they are a pair for whom we feel absolute sympathy.

I have little more to say because I feel like this is one of those instances where the more I try to examine what made this book move me so, the less impressed I will be by it. So I’ll just say that the scope of what it accomplishes is unparalleled, and if you read it at the right stage of life—say, on the brink of adolescence, just when you’re searching for a role model—then THE BLUE SWORD will undoubtedly become your bible of sorts.

Show Less

A new copy to replace the one I have read to shreds. (This is a great re-read.) Romance, magic, kidnapping, epic battles, strong men, strong women, fabulous horses, a magical woman's sword, visions of a long-ago Queen, true love... I couldn't ask for more.

Harry (Angharad) is your usual square peg

Show More

trying hard to fit into the round hole of her conventional life, lived in a frontier military fort under the guardianship of her brother. She feels an unreasonable affinity for the desert that surrounds Fort General Mundy. After she meets the King of the native tribesmen of the desert, she begins a long journey to find who she really is and where, after all, she belongs.

I seriously love this book. I have a major crush on Corlath. I want a horse.

Show Less

One of the blurbs on the book calls it the first in a series about the land of Damar; unfortunately, so far (more than 20 years later) it's a series of two. I'd love more. The Blue Sword is romantic adventure with the McKinley patented wry twist - exciting, great fun, and very grounded.

Derivative, which isn't necessarily bad, but combined with unlikable characters The Blue Sword just isn't worth the read.