From the Newbery Medal–winning author of The Hero and the Crown: the story of a princess who flees her father’s unwanted attention and finds an unexpected new life. Princess Lissla Lissar is the only child of the king and his queen, who was the most beautiful woman in seven kingdoms. Everyone loved the splendid king and his matchless queen so much that no one had any attention to spare for the … attention to spare for the princess, who grew up in seclusion, listening to the tales her nursemaid told about her magnificent parents.
But the queen takes ill of a mysterious wasting disease and on her deathbed extracts a strange promise from her husband: “I want you to promise me . . . you will only marry someone as beautiful as I was.”
The king is crazy with grief at her loss, and slow to regain both his wits and his strength. But on Lissar’s seventeenth birthday, two years after the queen’s death, there is a grand ball, and everyone present looks at the princess in astonishment and whispers to their neighbors, How like her mother she is!
On the day after the ball, the king announces that he is to marry again—and that his bride is the princess Lissla Lissar, his own daughter.
Lissar, physically broken, half mad, and terrified, flees her father’s lust with her one loyal friend, her sighthound, Ash. It is the beginning of winter as they journey into the mountains—and on the night when it begins to snow, they find a tiny, deserted cabin with the makings of a fire ready-laid in the hearth.
Thus begins Lissar’s long, profound, and demanding journey away from treachery and pain and horror, to trust and love and healing.
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Fascinating, haunting, disturbing. McKinley is a fabulous writer and most of her endings are happy. This story is markedly different.
Her writing is so clear and evocative, and her characters are imperfectly human and real. Even with the fantasy and imaginative ideas, the story seems real and gripping.
Didn’t think I would like it but I gave it a try. I am glad I did. It was very good.
I love Robin McKinley so reading this was a no brainier. And this was everything I expected it to be and more. Wonderful characters, engrossing story. Once I started I couldn’t put it down. This story brought out every range of emotion and then some.
Overlayed with an old fable, the characters WERE the story. The violence that was necessary …
I loved this book, definitely for an older reader due to some of the more graphic scenes. The relationship between the protagonist and her deerhound is incredible. Love this author!!
I liked this book, it was different & had an interesting plot. Good read.
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Robin McKinley’s take on the dark folktale ‘Donkeyskin’.
i read this first. it sent me searching for other mckinleys
too wordy
This book took a little bit to get into due to the way it was written. About the time I decided that I was going to quit reading it, it picked up and then I couldn’t put the book down so that I could get to the end to find out what happened!
I’m not sure if I recommend this book, but it was definitely well written. I would NOT recommend it for younger readers – whether that is physical or emotional, is up to you.
I LOVE Robin McKinely but this book struct me as brutal and waaay to harsh for what I was expecting. That is not to say that it wasn’t written with McKinley typical care – …
The story of a powerful man who gets away with horrible acts because he is powerful, and a young woman who runs away and learns to live on her own; a sane romance in which the leads are not stupid, desperate, or evil.
A book that will make you cry but the ending is so satisfying.
Excellent. This one is for more mature readers than some of her others.