The Shining Falcon is a fantasy novel by Josepha Sherman, a Twice-Told Tale retelling of the Russian Fairy Tale The Feather of Finist the Falcon.
Tropes featured in this work
- The Exile: On the false charges, Maria and her family have to flee.
- Fallen Princess: After their exile, the sisters Maria and Vasilissia.
- Femme Fatale: Ljuba uses magic and sex to try to work herself into power.
- Forced Transformation: Finist finds that a wolf really is a transformed man. His girlfriend, angry with him, hadn't really expected it to work.
- Love Potion: Ljuba creates these. She can even put them in candles.
- Magic Is Evil: Danilo and many others are convinced of this. Finist distinguishes between sorcery, which is, and magic, which need not be.
- Malicious Slander: A man slanders Maria's father to the prince, which is why she and her family have to flee.
- Nice to the Waiter: Ljuba is quite frustrated at how Finist is so concerned with the welfare of the peasants and other commoners.
- The Pardon: After Finist reveals the falsity of the charges, Danilo is pardoned.
- Oblivious to Love: Ljuba intends to use Finist for her ambitions. She insists on this to herself whenever unpleasant thoughts, such as it hurts not to be trusted by him, occur.
- Rags to Royalty: Maria is reduced to a peasant's life before gaining Finist's love.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Finist. So frustrating to Ljuba.
- Royal Blood: One royal family is also magical; you have to be able to turn into a bird to prove you are royal.
- Talking in Your Dreams: Finist appears in Alexi's dreams, posing as a bad dream.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: Every person with Royal Blood in a certain city can assume bird form.
- Youngest Child Wins: The younger of the two sisters is the heroine.