Harry is a girl who has often felt alone and out of place in the world, and even more so after the death of her father and her move to the dry, dusty and reddish Darian desert far from the wet and green world she is familiar with. She feels out of place not because of the Desert which calls to her, but because of who she is. She feels awkward in her own skin. No great beauty, taller than fashion permits, and just different from her surroundings. I think many a teen girl, and I was such a teen girl when I first read this book, can identify with this feeling.
But more than that I can identify with Harry, I like Harry. She is different, and although she tries to bridle her difference and be content with her lot, she doesn't surrender to it. And when she is taken from all that is familiar - kind people who love and care about her, and forced into a foreign world, she doesn't curl up and become useless, she strives to grow and learns to understand her difference.
When duty calls to her, she is not afraid to abandon the person she loves to do what she must. She is strong and brave, and it shows deeply when she returns to the man she abandoned afr
aid of his rejection, but returning all the same to face the music, so to speak.
I love this book. I like the world it is set in. I like the magic that inhabits this world, and most of all, I like the characters who are flawed, but willing to learn and grow.
Still after all these years, a favorite of mine. I have read this book at least a two dozen times over the last 30 years, and like an old, well loved friend, it is there to greet me each and every time, I open its cover.
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