Rae Carson

A fearful sixteen-year-old princess discovers her heroic destiny after being married off to the king of a neighboring country in turmoil and pursued by enemies seething with dark magic.

"Hero. Foreigner. Queen. Elisa, at the age of seventeen, is all three. And all three draw enemies. Faced with assassins, court politics, and the threat of civil war, Elisa despairs of being the ruler her people need. Her only hope is the Godstone. She must master its power once and for all. She finds clues hidden in a long forgotten--and forbidden--scripture. Accompanied by a one-eyed warrior, an enemy defector, and the man she is falling in love...

Lee Westfall, a young woman with the magical ability to sense the presence of gold, must flee her home to avoid people who would abuse her powers, so when her best friend Jefferson heads out across Gold Rush-era America to stake his claim, she disguises herself as a boy and sets out on her own dangerous journey.

Having arrived in California, Lee Westfall's magical power is growing and changing every day and may be enough, with help from her true friends, to stop her villainous Uncle Hiram when he kidnaps her and sends her deep into his gold mine.

When Star Wars: A New Hope was first released in 1977, part of its appeal was that the world it presented felt alive. Landspeeders and starships were dirty. Droids broke down. And it was filled with cool, weird, and really weird background characters. (Really, just take a look around the Mos Eisley cantina.) Never mind Han, Luke, Leia, Darth Vader, and Obi-Wan. Who were these other guys? What was their story? Just seeing them brought up questions...