If you loved watching Harry Crewe go from bewildered Homelander to the Hillfolk’s blue-sword–wielding champion Gonturan, you’ll click with Alanna’s secret training to become a knight. Like Harry’s laprun trial and desert drills with Mathin, Alanna faces grueling lessons, swordwork, and court tests—pushing past rules meant to keep her out. The same thrill of hard-won competence and recognition you felt when Corlath finally trusts Harry infuses every page of Alanna: The First Adventure.

Harry’s rough-edged tutelage—first under Mathin’s relentless training and then under Corlath’s wary guidance—mirrors Agnieszka’s prickly apprenticeship to the Dragon in Uprooted. As Harry’s kelar surges into terrifying usefulness against the North, Agnieszka’s unpredictable magic becomes the key to confronting the corrupted Wood. If you enjoyed the friction-turned-respect between Harry and her teachers, and the moment her raw power becomes a shield for Damar, you’ll savor this thorny, transformative mentor bond.

In The Blue Sword, Harry stands between the Homelanders’ outpost and Corlath’s Hillfolk, her kelar binding her to Damar even as her origins pull the other way. Empire of Sand channels that same tension: Mehr, born of an oppressed desert people, must navigate an imperial court that would harness her sacred rites. If the cultural pull you felt when Harry crosses the sands on Sungold and claims Gonturan gripped you, Mehr’s defiance within a sprawling, colonizing empire will, too.

Damar’s sun-blasted reaches, Hillfolk customs, the laprun, and the ineffable kelar give The Blue Sword its lived-in, wondrous feel. The Killing Moon offers equally immersive sands: Gujaareh’s dream-priests, healing-as-worship, and city-state politics—magic that’s powerful yet profoundly mysterious, much like Harry’s kelar. If riding with Corlath’s Riders across starlit dunes filled you with awe, Jemisin’s richly textured rites and night-blooming intrigue will do the same.

Harry’s journey—from a transplanted Homelander to the Blue Sword’s chosen champion who rallies Damar against the North—finds a kindred spirit in Elisa. Swept into desert hardship and political turmoil, Elisa sheds self-doubt the way Harry does after the laprun and her first battle rides with the Riders. If the moment Harry owns her destiny beside Corlath gave you chills, Elisa’s transformation into a canny, courageous leader will hit that same note.