THE PROMISE

Honoring her parents' promise, ten-year-old Princess Rania is taken from her lush palace and thrust into the arid desert home of Sandwriter, the powerful shaman whose magic is essential to survival in their world. When she's 14—wiser, stronger, but still ambivalent about dedicating her life to magic—Sandwriter sends her to choose her future, a choice made more difficult by the love of Atbin, the desert youth who took her to Sandwriter four years ago. Conscience wins: Rania decides that her responsibility to her people outweighs her personal happiness. The jacket shows Atbin and Rania perched far forward on a two-legged desert beast that, if the laws of gravity hold, is about to go snout-down in the sand; but this is fantasy, so the beast lumbers on. It's not a bad metaphor for the book: lots of suspension of disbelief required. That said, young readers will find some convincing details, while tales of selflessness still have their place. There may even be a subtext about the harsh price society exacts from women who choose wider responsibilities than love and family. (Fiction. 10+)