Mystic and Rider by Sharon Shinn
I'm not going to review this book - it's really too difficult for me to do so. Because it is a book that has its issues, but it is also a book that I really liked, for reasons that I do not entirely understand.
It's not deep, it's not a particularly difficult read, it's not terribly innovative or groundbreaking or clever. It's more of a comfort read for me than anything else, epic fantasy, with a side of romance.
I'm going to offer a quote instead:
"If I were to fashion a man I would want to see riding at my side, I would fashion him just like you. He would look like you, he would fight like you, he would be just hard to convince. He would be you. But he would learn, no matter how slowly, that he need not put love aside. He would come to understand that I am lonely, that I am frightened, that I am a woman building fires to ward off the dark.
"I am so used to being solitary and strong. I do not like being worried and weak. But I feel safe when you are near me and troubled when you are gone, and these are not feelings, I think, that will easily pass. You say I have the power to break you - well, you have changed me and I did not think I was capable of changing again. I only hope you will not abandon me, so altered and strange to myself, because you think I am too proud to accept your love. I would hate for my life to go on like that, empty of you. I think I would be the one to finally break after that."
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