Sharra's Exile

Rating:
Summary: Excellent, but original edition better.
Review: An outstanding expedition into the power of emotions and the internal struggles faced by Lew Alton in returning home to his native Darkover. The author has "tidied up" a number of time lines from the original publication. However, I found the original to be both more enjoyable and imaginative. While the reader can understand the desire of Ms. Bradley to have her work reflect a more mature self, the naivete of Lew and Marjorie is exchanged for a less dedsirable physical lust. While both versions entertain, and are excellent presentations of the Darkover venue, the original holds a special place in my childhood memories.

Rating:
Summary: I am truly sorry ...
Review: I am truly sorry but my review, (by Valai) the one that you will come across shortly, is not supposed to be on Sharra's Exile but it's supposed to be a review on Exile's Song, the book following this one. I don't know how it happened but I apologize. This book was a great book though.

Rating:
Summary: I am truly sorry ...
Review: I am truly sorry but my review, (by Valai) the one that you will come across shortly, is not supposed to be on Sharra's Exile but it's supposed to be a review on Exile's Song, the book following this one. I don't know how it happened but I apologize. This book was a great book though.

Rating:
Summary: The Love of Power or the Power of Love?
Review: Like The Heritage of Hastur, Sharra's Exile is told in chapters that alternate between the first-person narrative of Lew Alton, and the third-person focus on other characters (Diotima Ridenow and Regis Hastur, in particular). It takes up where the previous book left off, where struggles between birth family and chosen family are concerned. On a larger scale, there is also the battle between those who want to preserve the traditional culture of Darkover "by any means necessary" (including use of the Sharra Matrix, which is definitely against the Compact), and those who wish to become part of the Terran Empire.

The central characters become caught up in this struggle, while also dealing with the conflicting loyalties in their personal lives. Regis Hastur has to face his grandfather's disapproval of his lover Danilo, Lew Alton is haunted by the last words of his dead father, and Diotima Ridenow has to sort through her feelings for Lew when their marriage ends in disaster following the premature birth of their horribly deformed son.

Those who were touched by the madness of the Sharra Circle are drawn back to it, and the attempts to harness Sharra's power could easily spell disaster for Darkover.

Rating:
Summary: Gift or ... Curse?
Review: Marguerida Alton was born on Darkover but left when she was a small child. She returns with her music mentor and finds that haunted memories are buried within her mind and keep tormenting her everywhere she goes. It was a terrible loss when her mentor died right after they got to Darkover but now the real adventure begins.

Marguerida takes her mentor's death deeply. He was the only "real" father she ever knew. Loving, caring and filled with tenderess was what she had always craved and when she met him and his wife they gave her that.

Life on Darkover gets more mysterious when people keep treating her like royalty. They distantly refer to her dark red hair. Other people come up to her and keep telling her tidbits about the comyn and something about Gifts. Marguerida has no idea what they are talking about but has this nagging feeling that there is something she should have remembered. She travels with Rafaela to continue her musical work that she and her now dead mentor would have completed together. On the way she doesn't feel good and is sicker than she should have ever been, but doesn't know it because a lot of the time she's unconcious. Marguerida Alton is then transported to a castle where she finds friendship and the budding of new love ...

The cause of being sick is that her gift is inserting itself into her. Everyone tells her it's a gift ... why can't she believe that? To her it's a curse. The worst curse ...

Secrets are locked behind hidden walls in her mind ... no one can get to them except for herself and to do that she has to face something she fears the most ...

Rating:
Summary: Gift or ... Curse?
Review: Marguerida Alton was born on Darkover but left when she was a small child. She returns with her music mentor and finds that haunted memories are buried within her mind and keep tormenting her everywhere she goes. It was a terrible loss when her mentor died right after they got to Darkover but now the real adventure begins.

Marguerida takes her mentor's death deeply. He was the only "real" father she ever knew. Loving, caring and filled with tenderess was what she had always craved and when she met him and his wife they gave her that.

Life on Darkover gets more mysterious when people keep treating her like royalty. They distantly refer to her dark red hair. Other people come up to her and keep telling her tidbits about the comyn and something about Gifts. Marguerida has no idea what they are talking about but has this nagging feeling that there is something she should have remembered. She travels with Rafaela to continue her musical work that she and her now dead mentor would have completed together. On the way she doesn't feel good and is sicker than she should have ever been, but doesn't know it because a lot of the time she's unconcious. Marguerida Alton is then transported to a castle where she finds friendship and the budding of new love ...

The cause of being sick is that her gift is inserting itself into her. Everyone tells her it's a gift ... why can't she believe that? To her it's a curse. The worst curse ...

Secrets are locked behind hidden walls in her mind ... no one can get to them except for herself and to do that she has to face something she fears the most ...

Rating:
Summary: The story of a woman haunted by her past ...
Review: This book is about Margareth Alton, daughter of Lew Alton and Tyra. She has had the Alton gift since childhood, and grow up in Earth, far from Darkover, but haunted in nightmares by her past (this events are told in Sharra s Exile). Running away from these nightmares and memories she has gone to the University and became an musician studier, visiting many planets, searching for folk music. One day, she has recevied the mission to go back to Darkover to collect folk music with her mentor ( Doctor Igor Davidson). The moment she arrived in the Blody Sun planet, she started to change and discover new facts that would reorganize everything she has believed. She has to fight to learn to control these changes and her forgotten powers and finally face her past and heritage. In these path, she discovers who she really is and find love in a forbidden man...