Hawkmistress!

Hawkmistress! is tagged in my head as "the cross-dressing one", and that's a fairly accurate tag. It's set a little after Stormqueen! in the chronology of Darkover, and tells the story of Romilly a daughter of the MacAran family. Their family laran (psychic power) is to do with animal control/empathy and she's got a large helping of it. The trouble is, not only is her father suspicious of laran users but also tending hawks and horses is man's work and thoroughly unsuitable for a young lady. This is a fairly archetypal coming of age story - Romilly runs away from an arranged marriage and after overcoming several obstacles and growing up she finds her place in the world. It's also a somewhat Shakespearean story - to try and stay safe in a dangerous world she disguises herself as a man. With varying amounts of success, and of farce.

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