Sunday 13 November 2016

In a bold move...

This follows on from a forum discussion about my upcoming book Red Sister.

Someone picked up on a line in the publisher's release about the book deal (not a line I wrote).

In a bold move, RED SISTER features Mark’s first ever female protagonist, Nona; a girl with a mysterious past and a dangerous future. 

What, they asked, was bold about having a female protagonist?

Well ... from my perspective, nothing. Perhaps if I thought that the readership I've built across my first six books on the back of two male protagonists lacked the ... flexibility ... to try a book with a female protagonist then it might be considered bold to abandon them and try to build a new readership. But I don't believe that's true.


However, the thread did set me to thinking, and I pointed out that the "bold" probably didn't refer to a fantasy book that simply had a female point-of-view character (of which I can immediately name dozens) but a fantasy book with only one point-of-view character, and that character was female. At which point I struggled to think of one.

So, hit me. A non-YA fantasy book with a single point-of-view character, who is female. To make it harder, let's rule out urban fantasy and paranormal romance. Focus on epic fantasy and its closest cousins.

I'm sure there must be many and the "bold" is still a strange choice of words. But I don't recall reading one. Expand my horizons. More points for a famous example.


Here's a list. Let me know if there are errors. It's easy to forget a PoV

Kushiel's Dart, by Jacqueline Carey
Paladin of Souls, by Lois McMaster Bujold
Spiritwalker trilogy, by Kate Elliott
A Natural History of Dragons, by Marie Brennan
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, by N.K. Jemisin
Ash, by Mary Gentle
Son of Avonar, by Carol Berg
(many more suggested in comments below so, yeah, not that bold!).

I am finding many of the suggestions are people remembering that the MAIN protagonist was female but on closer inspection it turns out that there were male PoV characters in the book...



EDIT: In other news, this blog post has been accused of coming across as a male saviour and acting as if I'm doing something new and fresh with a female PoV and also rubbing people the wrong way in the tweet linking it ... by quoting "in a bold move" from the line I take to task.

Based on the actual content of the post I find myself astonished. It was my intention to bring attention to books from an entirely female PoV in the area in which I write. I thought this would be a good thing to do. If it has offended people I can only apologize, while at the same time struggling to understand how.


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63 comments:

  1. Kushiel's Dart and its sequels, by Jacqueline Carey. (Looking forward to Red Sister BTW!)

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  2. Bujold's Paladin of Souls? It's been a while since I read it but I'm almost certain it has a single POV. It was a Hugo winner, if that counts as famous.

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  3. Also, all the Sevenwaters books by Juliet Marillier. The first is Daughter of the Forest.

    Oh, and The Thief's Gamble, by Juliet E McKenna. Not sure how strict you're being, but that's a first-person female protagonist plus some secondary POVs in third person. So the female protagonist definitely still drives the story.

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    1. & chapter one of Daughter of the Forest has a male PoV... possibly some head hopping.

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    2. :-)

      Perhaps they think it's a bold move specifically because you're a man? I mean, I have no doubt that you're just as good at writing female POV as male, but I can't think of an existing fantasy novel that has a single female POV and is by a male author. (Will watch the list with interest to see if anyone else comes up with one!)

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  4. The Deed of Paksenarrion by Elizabeth Moon (I haven't read it but I believe the protagonist Paks is the primary and maybe only POV).

    The Spiritwalker Trilogy by Kate Elliott.

    The Kushiel Series by Jacqueline Carey (I believe the first and last trilogies are from a female first-person POV)

    Windhaven by George R.R. Martin and Lisa Tuttle

    Ash: A Secret History by Mary Gentle

    Wolf in the Attic by Paul Kearney

    The Empire Trilogy by Raymond E. Feist and Janny Wurts (I may be wrong on this, but from memory the entire trilogy is told from the POV of Mara of the Acoma)

    The Sookie Stackhouse/True Blood series by Charlaine Harris (I assume you're not counting urban fantasy, because there'd be several million contenders)

    Un Lun Dun by China Mieville (marketed as YA, but it's really very spurious)

    There are other works with other POV sections, but the main protagonist is female. I'd rank at least Gods War by Kameron Hurley (maybe less so the sequels), Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie, The Scar by China Mieville and Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson in that category.

    You also have books with multiple POVs and all of the POVs are female, with the obvious example being the Witches books by Terry Pratchett and Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley.

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    1. Here is my problem in a nutshell. People aren't good at this. I just checked The Deed of Paksenarrion as someone who *had* read it suggested it. I found a male PoV immediately.

      *I* have read the Empire trilogy and know for a fact that it has several male PoVs ... and now I can't really take on trust any of your suggestions...

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    2. I pick a random Witches book by Pratchett, Witches Abroad comes up first on Google. I got to Google books and search on "he thought" ... 35 hits. Ergo, it has at least one male PoV...

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    3. Books 2 and 3 have Kevin, Hokanu and Arakasi... but Daughter of the Empire is entirely from Mara's perspective. :)

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    4. (& the "he thought" was a tag on some thoughts, not the use of it in a witch's dialogue)

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    5. Not so, Laura. Chapter 4 of Daughter of the Empire is in Chumaka's PoV...

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    6. Witches Abroad has some POV sequences from the male cat Greebo, so that's up to you if it counts :) He does get briefly transformed into a human-cat hybrid thing, so maybe not. Equal Rites I think is 99% from Granny Weatherwax or Eskarina Smith, but one guy right at the very end of the book gets a couple of paragraphs from his POV. Lords and Ladies definitely has a couple of male POV sequences (from the nymphomaniac dwarf and Ridcully, and I think maybe the Librarian).

      Ash: A Secret History has a framing device set in the modern day with two historians/archaeologists communicating via email so that may invalidate it.

      The Spiritwalker Trilogy is entirely, 100% in the first-person from the female protagonist, I've got them right here. Same for Wolf in the Attic. I looked at at the reviews of the Kushiel series and they agree the first trilogy (there's three) is first-person from a female POV and the second trilogy is first-person from a male POV. The third trilogy has a female protagonist but I couldn't find confirmation if it was first-person or solo-POV.

      I did a speed-read of Windhaven and the whole book is in third-person but from the POV of Maris.

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    7. Well, returning to Google Books and the very first "he thought" example in Witches Abroad ... it appears to be a butler conversing with an incognito DEATH... so I suspect your memory is at fault here...

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    8. I think there's only two chapters with a male POV in Deed of Paksenarrion. Everything is pretty much from Paks. I don't remember if those two are on the first book, as Deed is an omnibus of a trilogy.

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    9. ...but the whole call was for examples of female *only* books... not *mostly* :)

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    10. The first book does have more than one male POV.
      In the second one it's just her and the final chapter doesn't even have a character, it's all a transcription of letters that other characters wrote about her. Does that count?
      In the third there's 1 chapter out of 31 with a male POV. Oh well, that was close.

      Question: What if book 1 of a series fills the criteria, but not books 2 and 3? And what if book 1 doesn't, but later books does?

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  5. Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas is really good.

    And I know it's sci Fi for I also really enjoyed Marissa Meyer's Luner Chronicles

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    1. Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas published August 7th 2012 by Bloomsbury USA CHILDREN'S ... shelved as YA by thousands of Goodreads users...

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    2. Also more than 1 POV in Thrones of Glass.

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  6. A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan!

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  8. I am really struggling to think of any pure female pov epic fantasy books that I have read! Which is weird now that you have pointed it out.

    Perhaps A. Lee Martinez, A Nameless Witch (not epic fantasy, more comic fantasy)- and it has been a long time since I read it so cannot be sure. Can't find my copy, but the preview shows at least the opening is in first person, so maybe...

    Mercedes Lackey's backlist may have something. I've only read three, none of which qualify, but maybe someone who has read more will know if any are solely female pov.

    The first book of the Tamir Triad by Lynne Flewelling and the Damar books by Robin McKinley look like possible candidates, but again I haven't read those.

    From my tbr list - Patricia McKillip? Sharon Shinn? Sheri S. Tepper? But then I think some of those blur the borders between fantasy and fantasy romance (is that a close enough cousin?) - and according to Goodreads, some people shelve these books as "YA".

    I wonder, if you find many, are they are more likely to be older books as recent trends (for whatever reasons) seem to have shied away from using a solely female pov?

    Tl;Dr - I am no help whatsoever! Sorry!

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  9. Does The Slow Regard of Silent Things by Patrick Rothfuss count? I only remember Auri's POV. I wouldn't think of it as YA but it is fantasy.

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  10. I have another one for you: Firethorn by Sarah Micklem. Definitely single female POV.

    Also, I'd like to raise an objection re Sevenwaters. All the Sevenwaters books are a female protagonist telling her story. If you don't like Daughter of the Forest because it has Sorcha relating a story from before she was born, as told to her by someone else, either Son of the Shadows or Child of the Prophecy would do the job ;-)

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  11. Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie

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    1. See, I've not read it but I'm assured that this book alternates a female PoV with that of a male named Caul Shivers... And yet here you are telling me it fits the bill...

      Hence my inability to accept any of these suggestions on faith.

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    2. It alternates but there was never any doubt in my mind that it was Monza Murcatto's story. On the other hand, Caul Shivers takes up a good chunk of the text.

      I was thinking Mistborn, but that is multiple pov. Sabriel is ya.


      Sad to say I have yet to read an adult fantasy told mostly from the pov of a woman. Red Sister will be the first one.

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  12. The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by NK Jemisin. 5th Season is multi POV, but all the POVs are female.

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    1. Pretty sure this qualifies - just grabbed it off the shelf and it's in 1st person (as I thought) though it does have some third-person "storytelling" sections I took as being related to us by the narrator.

      Apart from that, there's always Jirel of Joiry by C L Moore. It's from the 1930s - talk about a bold move!

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  13. I can't really think of any other published adult fantasy novels with a solo female viewpoint that's not Urban Fantasy or already mentioned. There is Uprooted, but it's not an epic fantasy, although you should probably still count it. However I can't remember for a few series, where I know the main character was female, but I'm not sure if there were other viewpoint characters.

    Elizabeth Haydon's Symphony of Ages: https://www.goodreads.com/series/46807-symphony-of-ages

    Karen Miller's Godspeaker Trilogy: https://www.goodreads.com/series/49780-godspeaker-trilogy

    Amanda Downum's Necromancer Chronicles: https://www.goodreads.com/series/52995-the-necromancer-chronicles

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    1. Looking at the three I linked and thinking about them, I believe that throughout Haydon's series there were other viewpoint characters, and I think there might have been more than one viewpoint in the Godspeaker Trilogy, but I think they were all women (but I might be wrong, it's been awhile). For the Necromancer Chronicles, I don't remember there being multiple viewpoints, but again, it's been awhile since I read them so I'm not 100% confident.

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    2. You are correct to doubt yourself. I just checked the first book of Miller's trilogy, there is a male PoV called Durm.

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    3. That's the problem with memory, it degrades over time, especially in regards to tertiary viewpoint characters. :)

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  14. Naomi Novik's 'Uprooted'

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  15. I Don't know of many books from a woman's POV in straight fantasy that I have read all the way through. Many in this little list I made are not really fantasy but it's the closest I could do with my meager knowledge of the old stuff.

    The Hidden Queen (Anghara Kir Hama) Alma Alexander. If there are male POV scenes, there is like 2 or 3.

    Song in the Silence (The Tale of Lanen Kaelar) Elizabeth Kerner. From what I skimmed from the start of the chapters, it's all from her POV. It is listed on 10 shelves for YA on Goodreads but also 15 shelves for adult. So whatever.

    Fire in the Mist (Arhel) Holly Lisle, Haven't started reading this one yet, but it appears to be all from her POV.

    The Book of Earth (Dragon Quartet) Marjorie B. Kellogg. Haven't been able to get ahold of a copy, I don't know, from the description there doesn't seem to be a male POV.

    Green by (green universe) Lay Lake. Is labeled as YA, but I have yet to finish it so take it or leave it.
    Sabriel I would put in the same box as Green, but there labelled as YA so what can you do?

    Silent Blade (Kinsmen) Ilona Andrews. Some unholy mashup of Si-Fi and urban fantasy. I can't remember if there are Male POV's, if there are they are few and far between.

    Pariah (Bequin) Dan Abnett. Si-Fi and 40k to boot, 100% from Bequins POV.

    Song of Scarabaeus (Scarabeaus) Sara Creasy. Very Si-Fi, don't think it ever switched from the female lead's POV.

    Wolf by Wolf (wolf by Wolf) Ryan Graudin. Alternate WW2 timeline, the mc is a shape shifter, she started of as female, don't remember if she changes to male at any point and if she did I don't think it disqualifies the book.

    Crossover (Cassandra Kresnov) Joel Sheperd. The very definition of hard Si-Fi, for the first 3 books at least it never changes POV from the female(if robot counts) MC.

    Empress Game (The Empress Game) Rhonda Mason. skimmed the start of a half a dozen chapters, they all start with the female mc's name from the first person, so I presume if doesn't change.

    Got some Urban Fantasy that stretch the genre for what their worth
    City of light (outcast) Keri Arthur. not sure if this one stays with the female mc for the whole time.
    Winter wolf (Witch and wolf) by R.J. Blain. Pretty sure this is all female mc POV, but then it is the very modernist of the fantasies.

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    1. Yes Song in the silence is as far as I can tell 100% from Lanen's POV. I checked on google books to make sure as well.

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    2. Just checked Fire in the Mists, at the start of chapter 7ish it switches to some bloke. Most of the chapters seem to be from the MC's POV, but this book is off the list.

      The book of the Earth I haven't been able to get ahold of and the google books search I did didn't clear anything up. I can't tell wether it uses a male POV. If some has a copy they might be able to clear it up.

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    3. Ok, I have to correct my self, Song in the Silence does start switch to a male POV around the tail end of chapter 5.

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  16. The vast majority of interesting fantasy books/series have multiple points of view, at least in my opinion. Reading from a single point of view can become a little tiresome as a single POV places enormous pressure on the main character to grow and develop in interesting and significant ways. I love character driven books, and in that sense I enjoy multiple points of view.

    Also, BTW restricting this to YA automatically skewed the results. That genre is well established into several clear sector, and so many authors are chasing the market that it has become both rich and interesting, and formulaic. I think the bigger point is this. Do you think that focusing on a female character's POV is bold? If not shrug it off and enjoy the publicity. If you do think it is a strong move on your part, then explain why and let us in on the story. (Finally, do you have the show Younger over there? If so, watch the light humour about a RR Martin type who writes a little female erotica as Anonymous.)

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    1. >Do you think that focusing on a female character's POV is bold?

      I'm pretty sure I answer that in the post more than once.

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    2. In my opinion it is not particularly bold in any sense of the word, it's just something that no one in the industry is doing much now. Which is what I got out of the post from Mark.
      I think it is a tragedy that there aren't more fantasy books written solely from a female POV, as first person POV is for me absolute best way for a book to be written.

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  17. On one level it's a thin list because it's objectively trickier to tell an appropriately 'epic fantasy' scale story from only one perspective, and the minute you introduce multiple perspectives, some of those are quite likely to end up being male characters.

    So on one level it's a trick question as to how many epics are limited perspective that can carry an epic-type story with only one character. On another, it's how many of these are female characters (and how many of those are getting published). And I'm going to say that because I actively hunt out books like that... there aren't many. And again, outside of YA you end up in what in older books is more likely classified as 'domestic fantasy' - which crosses over with historical fantasy and romance more often as well. 'Epic' is a slightly rigid label if you're trying to catch things like that, because, marketing.

    But hey - there are a few. A Heroine of the World by Tanith Lee could fit? But again, it's not the standard medieval style epic fantasy.

    Ironically I have a feeling Carol Berg's Son of Avonar might also fit, but it's difficult to check as not available as an ebook.

    Black Ships and The Hand of Isis by Jo Graham are domestic/ historical fantasy (occupying the same ground as epic, per se). Nice to see Firethorn by Sarah Micklem already mentioned, as I haven't seen that talked about in forever.

    And I can't see why Uprooted doesn't count? It has crossover but Naomi Novak has stated in interviews she didn't write it as YA. (Which leads into another messy genre argument, as one thing that pushes female-focused fantasy out of YA tends to be the sex scenes... and they then end up in Romance instead for the exact same reason. There's a very limited middle ground).

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    1. >And I can't see why Uprooted doesn't count?

      Well, if I'm ruling out YA (& I am) then including a Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Young Adult Fantasy & Science Fiction (2015) (which got 17,000 votes!) seems odd...

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    2. Eh, fair enough - Uprooted has won or been nominated for a lot more awards (Nebula, WFS, Hugo etc) that aren't specifically YA, so the Goodreads nom didn't really register. But it ends up falling under YA because it's not explicit enough to *disqualify* it per se, no matter what the author intended. Aaaand YA sells more.

      Beyond the semantics though, it bugs me because I didn't read Uprooted for ages because it looked like it was shallower YA and that put me off. Which was stupid, as it's awesome.

      From what checking I could do, Son of Avonar does seem to fit? It's definitely epic and I could only see the main character first person when I tried looking at the bits of the scanned version on Amazon.com?

      Whether A Heroine of the World fits kind of depends on how you're defining epic fantasy?

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  18. - The Deed of Paksenarrion, by Elizabeth Moon. Daughter of farmer runs away, becomes a mercenary and later a paladin who fights against the forces of darkness attempting to destroy the world. The Deed is actually an omnibus of the trilogy, it starts with Sheepfarmer's Daughter.
    - Oath of Fealty starts a new series of the character, Paladin's Legacy, which is a pentalogy. Haven't read it, but I assume it follows the predecessor and only has Paks as the POV.

    - The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble's Braids, by Michael McClung. Won your very own SPFBO! May not be Epic at first, but at the end hints at bigger things going on.

    - The Emperor's Soul, by Brandon Sanderson. A soulforger is imprisoned and forced to reconstruct the soul of an emperor so the kingdom/world doesn't collapse.

    - The Traitor Baru Cormorant, by Seth Dickinson. I don't think it has magic, but it has a lot of court intrigue Game of Thrones style, though I haven't read it yet.

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    1. & if you look up at the previous comments you'll see that I checked "The Deed of Paksenarrion" and it has at least one male PoV in there ... which makes me wonder how sure you are about the others?

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    2. A quick check on The Traitor Baru Cormorant seems to show a section from Duke Xate Olake's PoV...

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    3. The Thief is first person, 100% through Amra Tetys. There's an epilogue narrated by an omniscient impersonal narrator.
      But Emperor's Soul has the Prologue an Epilogue with a male POV. Sigh.

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    4. Mark, TTBC is all from Baru's POV.

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    5. Oath of Fealty isn't actually about Paks at all. It's mostly about the Duke being King now. It has several female POVs, but they alternate with male.

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  19. I'm not 100% sure on either of these, since I don't have my copies to hand, but I can't remember any male narration off the top of my head.

    Of Sand and Malice Made, by Bradley P Beaulieu

    Guns of the Dawn, by Adrian Tchaikovsky

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  20. Mark, a few other suggestions to try to increase your list, but I warn you I haven't read them, so anyone could help Mark here it would be appreciated, and forgive me if they do not fit the criteria.

    - The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley. Here is the magical legend of King Arthur, vividly retold through the eyes and lives of the women who wielded power from behind the throne.

    - Green Rider, by Kristen Britain. On her long journey home from school after a fight which will surely lead to her expulsion, Karigan G'ladheon ponders her future as she trudges through the immense forest called Green Cloak. Pursued by unknown assassins, following a path only her horse seems to know, and accompanied by the silent specter of the original messenger, she herself becomes a legendary Green Rider.

    Anne McCaffrey's Dragonflight, by Anne McCaffrey. Anne McCaffrey's beloved science fantasy epic becomes a fully-painted graphic novel. Join Lessa, sole remnant of a noble house, as she comes of age and dares to reclaim her birthright--and battles to save Pern from the deadly silver threadfall that threatens devastation of the planet.

    - The Lark and the Wren, by Mercedes Lackey. If Rune could get the proper training, she could become one of the finest bards her world has ever seen. But her advantages are few, so when she decides to play her fiddle for the Ghost of Skull Hill, he agrees to a bargain--an arrangement that could mean silver for her future quest . . . or her death at the hands of the ghost.

    - The Witches of Eileanan, by Kate Forsyth. In the Celtic land of Eileanan, witches and magic have been outlawed, and those caught for practicing witchcraft are put to death! It is a land ruled by an evil Queen, where sea-dwelling Fairgean stir, and children vanish in the night. But in a valley deep in the mountains, young Isabeau grows to womanhood under the guidance of an elderly witch, and must set out on a quest, carrying the last hopes of the persecuted witches.

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  21. My memory is notoriously awful. However, I'm fairly certain that Bradley Beaulieu's "Twelve Kings" is female PoV only, and a quick search on my Kindle for any obvious gender markers didn't do anything to dissuade me. Likewise Fran Wilde's "Updraft".

    (I opened with Kushiel's Dart, but that's there already)

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  22. Twelve Kings has a male POV in Emre. I think the prequel novella is Ceda only.

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    1. From memory and a quick scan, Emre is certainly a key player in Twelve Kings, but I don't think he's a PoV. I admit it *has* been a while...

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  23. Son of Avonar by Carol Berg? Its been a long time, but it has always stuck in my mind as a rare example of a female-driven fantasy. I'm not certain, but the following book in the series may also be, though I feel like the 3rd and 4th switched to another character.

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    1. Yeah, I confirmed tis, Son of Avonar is 100% female POV, the other books in the series then branch out. Also, Carol's The Soul Mirror is female POV, the prior and following books in the Collegia Magica series are each male POV.

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  24. Pretty sure Tamora Pierce has written several books in this vein. I think they're YA books, but as the protagonist grows they get progressively more adult-ey (for lack of better adjective). Not sure if they count

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  25. I believe that Karen Memory by Elizabeth Bear fits the bill, it's also a great book, a western/steampunk mystery type story

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  26. The middle book of The Riddlemaster of Hed trilogy (Heir of Sea and Fire) is all Raederle's pov. I just skimmed through it, double-checking.

    The Tombs of Atuan is Tenar. Though the prologue appears to be omniscient. I don't know if that disqualifies it or not.

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  27. I haven't read these, but my partner tells me the Obernewtyn Chronicles, by Isobelle Carmody. She's an Australian author. She started writing them when she was only sixteen, and the character grows throughout the series, as the author does.

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