Three Hearts And Three Lions

Three Hearts And Three Lions by Poul Anderson

One of the classics of the fantasy genre.  It opens with the first-person narrator recounting how Holger Carlsen, a Dane, had come to America for education and worked for the same company as the narrator -- until World War II, when he went back to Denmark to work for the resistance.  Except that at one point, trying to cover an escape, pinned down by Nazi forces, he suffers a head wound and wakes up to find himself in an old growth forest.  With hawks.  And a bear.  He could believe the others, but there were no bears left in Denmark.
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Mairelon the Magician

Mairelon the Magician by Patricia C. Wrede

In an alternate Regency, Kim is scouting out a wagon where an itinerant magician is performing his tricks.  Once she knows how long he is out, she goes inside to check what he's got, a spying mission a real toff sent her on.  When she tries to open one chest, a ward explodes, and she thinks she should have asked for more money, since she hit on a real wizard.
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in which I ponder the problem of some monsters

Because sometimes you get part of an idea, and have to build it up, but that doesn't mean that it easily or quickly joins up with other ideas.

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