Winner, 2010 EPIC Ebook Award for fiction in the Mainstream category.

"Breathtakingly gorgeous writing ¦ a multi-layered tale of such depth, breadth and insight that it was very nearly a spiritual experience¦"
--from a review by T. T. Thomas on Amazon.com

"¦reminds me of Le Guin, of Cecelia Holland, and something of Rosemary Sutcliff¦ It made me feel as I did when I was a child reading authors like those¦ Once again I was in a magical place¦"
--from a review by Charles Ferguson on Amazon.com

"¦theres no ring of power or glowing sword of specialness; the magic, like the tone of the book, is quiet. It feels real."
--from a blog review on livejournal

When she was a child, the author of When Women Were Warriors happily identified with all the male heroes she read about in stories that began, "Once upon a time, a young man went out to seek his fortune." But she would have been delighted to discover even one story like that with a female protagonist. Since she never did find the story she was looking for all those years ago, she decided to write it.

In Book I of the trilogy, Tamras arrives in Merins house to begin her apprenticeship as a warrior, but her small stature causes many, including Tamras herself, to doubt that she will ever become a competent swordswoman. To make matters worse, the Lady Merin assigns her the position of companion, little more than a personal servant, to a woman who came to Merins house, seemingly out of nowhere, the previous winter, and this stranger wants nothing to do with Tamras.

"¦Both men and women of all persuasions seem to love these books... Very rare. Bravo, Bravo, Bravo!"
--from a review by T. T. Thomas on Amazon.com

"Think Beowulf--only comprehensible and with girls."
--from a review on the blog, The Rainbow Reader, by Baxter Clare Trautman, author of The River Within