[elaysee]

Robin McKinley's Newberry Honor book The Blue Sword is among the July Kindle US monthly deals, for $1.99. Most of McKinley's older works are with Open Road now, but this remains with HarperCollins and I didn't have an e-copy previously. I've read this book at least three times, and still enjoy it as an adult.

Harry Crewe is a Homelander orphan girl, come to live in Damar from over the seas. She is drawn to the bleak landscape, so unlike the green hills of her Homeland. She 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, live.

Corlath is the golden-eyed king of the Free Hillfolk, son of the sons of the legendary Lady Aerin. When he arrives in Harry’s town to ally with the Homelanders against a common enemy, he never expects to set Harry’s destiny in motion: She will ride into battle as a King’s Rider, bearing the Blue Sword, the great mythical treasure, which no one has wielded since Lady Aerin herself.