From my husband’s childhood bookshelf…

This is Raven, The Frozen God, a book which migrated to our house from my husband’s childhood bookshelf.

Rven

My husband assures me that in this series (there are 5) the females are main characters. All the men, he says, are sidekicks. I’d like to know how she scales icebergs in high-heeled boots. No hints on the back of the book:

From out of the bond of slavery, there arose a warrior…a warrior feared across all lands, a warrior whose blade was stained with the blood of thousands– man and beast– who smiled as she killed, with hair as gold as summer sun, eyes as blue as the heavens, and a body which invited only love yet dealt bloody, merciless death to her enemies.

He gave me a tour of the bookshelf, all kinds of fantasy books from the 70s and 80s, mostly small and paperback, stacked alongside novels by Cormac McCarthy, Herman Hesse, and Flannery O’Connor.

bookshelf

As a kid, my husband collected the brothers Hildenbrant who are famous for illustrating Tolkein. The legend is that one brother started from one side of the page, the other from the opposite side, and they met in the middle. Finally, they wrote their own book, Urshurak, which features my husband’s favorite warrior princess. Here she is, standing over her kill.

warriorprincess

Got to say, she looks a little like me.