Dun Lady's Jess

1995 winner of the Compton Crook Award

sequels: Changespell; Changespell Legacy

Headline News! Star Ink has acquired Dun Lady's Jess and will reissue in a classy French flap trade paperback, September '07! Watch for details In the Works!

cover by Mondolithic

"A thrill ride with a fantasy twist, neatly done by a knowledgeable author - short, sweet, and paced at a gallop, Dun Lady's Jess can't help but to win you over."
--Janny Wurts

Excerpt from Elizabeth Moon's Forward
for Dun Lady's Jess

"....Dun Lady's Jess is unique.   Durgin has created a character who is utterly believable as both horse and horse-in-human-body.   The setup is brilliant: the magic that causes the transformation is not in the horse, but external, and the creature that is Dun Lady's Jess must adapt, must find an identity that works in both paradigms.   Humans who encounter her, in either body, must also adapt to the reality that created her and that she represents.  She cannot be, any longer, just another mare...she cannot be, ever, just another woman...."

When hikers Dayna and Eric find a young woman naked, terrified, and speechless, they're sure she's the victim of foul play. But the truth is much more shocking: she isn't human at all. She's Dun Lady's Jess, a horse transformed into this new shape by the spell that brought her and her rider, to whom she is utterly devoted, into this world.

Posessed now of human intelligence but still a horse deep inside, Jess desperately searches this world for her master and rider, using her fiery equine spirit to take on human idiosyncracies--and human threats.