Hawkmistress!

This book is set in one of the earlier time periods of Darkover: The Ages of Chaos. The heroine of this novel is a girl named Romilly. Romilly MacAran is the daughter of an important family. She has her family's gift of laran: the ability to intuitively feel what animals are feeling, thus making it easier to work with them. In particular, this laran is used with hawks and horses (her family is known for the MacAran gift with hawks). Because of the strained family dynamic, more pressure is put in Romilly than otherwise might have been. The eldest son left home to train his laran in a Tower, and this enraged Mikhail MacAran (so much so that mention of laran or the eldest son's name was forbidden). The heir was a disappointment to Mikhail and he wished that Romilly was a man. Mikhail tried to push Romilly into a marriage with someone that she found disgusting and unacceptable. Instead of accepting the marriage, she ran away from home. Romilly disguises herself as a man. This era of Darkover is extremely patriarchal and women have few rights in society. Romilly meets up with Dom Carlo and his exile band who are joining the army of the exiled King Carolin. Though her travels she is learning who she is and who she wants to be. Romilly also gets to experience some of the prejudice Darkover society presents women. For a brief while, she also joins the Sisterhood of the Sword, a female/warrior society. Even while we learn about Romilly we also see more of Darkover and what the society is like. This is a feminist novel in the characterization of Romilly and how she reacts to the men (and world) of Darkover. It is also a very good novel. It goes in a different direction from Stormqueen (another novel set in the Ages of Chaos), but is just as rich and just as good. Darkover is one of the better fanstay worlds and Marion Zimmer Bradley is an excellent writer. Most, if not all, of the Darkover novels are self-contained, so it is not necessary to read them in any particular order. Just pick one up and give it a try. I haven't been disappointed by this series yet.

I loved reading this book!!! The heroine doesn't like being a "lady". She loves working with the animals and helping with outside things rather than being inside. Her "gift" is a rare kind of laran, to feel the emotions of animals and what they are thinking. She travels in the disguise of a boy and everyone believes that's just what she is. A boy with a very special talent. Helping a group of men with some birds, a kind of bird where if you link your mind with it you can see through it's eyes, she learns that a war is starting to take effect. Adventure is teeming everywhere and she enters places that no other girl, or woman could enter. But her gift isn't always good. Sometimes she feels too much and sometimes she could almost loose control on what's human ... and what's animal.This is one of my favorite books in the MZB series and it's a wonderful read.

Hawkmistress is one of Bradley's Darkover series and one of the best. This is the story of a woman's liberation from a male dominated society intent on marrying her to an undesirable match. Escaping from her family she roams Darkover enroute to battling usurpers and earning fame as a swordwoman.

I didn't stop reading this book till I'd finished it (literaly) the next morning. This is the age old tale of a woman who shows that she can be an equal in a male dominated world. Quite insperational!

This darkover novel is my personal favourite in the entire darkover series, it involves a daughter of the MacArran clan, who has the laran of the MacArran clan as a help or hindrance on her adventure. Her father refuses to send her to a tower to have her laran trained, and then tries to marry her against her will. Read the book to find out more! It's a good read