Robin McKinley is one of the best discoveries I have made in the past year - a recommendation at Amazon led me to read 'Beauty', and I followed this with 'Deerskin' and 'The Hero and the Crown', and am looking forward to more. Deerskin particularly was quite disturbing in parts and would not be to everyone's taste, but I found it a very optimistic and beautiful story.
I especially liked the ending;
Any other fans out there?
I especially liked the ending;
And she promised herself and Ossin, and Ash and the puppies, that she would try to stay there, for as long as the length of their lives; that she would put her strength now and hereafter into staying and not fleeing. But I do not know how strong I am, she said. I cannot promise.
It is enough, said Ossin. For who can make such promises? No one of us is so whole that he can see the future.
What a beautiful way to end a story, and far more inspirational and moving than 'and they lived happily ever after'! The uncertainty gives a sense of 'reality' and of a new beginning, both exiting and frightening, in the way a new beginning often is.
Any other fans out there?
