A Stronger Wind

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Synopsis

The women of High Balir live cloistered lives. Aliella, only child of the First Man, can never expect to speak to any man other than the husband chosen for her. Everything changes when a provincial baron kills her father and seizes power, a coup accepted by all but a few traditionalists like the young warrior-lord Boronal. But when the baron prepares to marry Aliella to his sadistic son, he throws her and Boronal together and sets them on a course he could never have imagined. They find refuge among the anarchic, freedom-loving Sala-she, where women can fill all roles and professions. Aliella chooses to train as a warrior, gaining unimagined skills as well as the strength and confidence to confront her father's murderers. But she must resolve her feelings for Boronal before mounting a far greater challenge against the most powerful forces in her world: prejudice and history. Aliella's is the story of every woman, every man and every society. Hers is the choice we all must make: to settle comfortably among the imprisoning conventions of our past, or battle to win the prickly freedoms of our future.