Disclosure: I received a copy directly from the author.
What happens when someone’s life is dropped into a foreign place with all they know is beyond their grasp? Chiyo Alglaeca is such a person. With an inner strength she was unaware she possessed, she fights her way back home in the only ways she knows how. Teaming up with two rebels, they elude the emperor’s forces as a mysterious cult threatens to envelop Chiyo in their schemes against the oppressive ruler. Fed by fear, then anger, finally an unshaken resolve and against all odds she finds a way return to her family.
I found myself completely disoriented at the beginning, then slightly defeated, only to realise that the author, Sadie S. Forsythe, has this wonderful ability in ensuring that the reader shares an emotional relationship with the protagonist. Few would feel differently if torn from all they know and dumped in a strange place, speaking a different language and where emerge peculiar customs. The author has done a wonderful job of mashing up different cultures to create a colourful landscape and vivid characters in a pre-modern technological age. I was only ever unsure about time. There a places where an indication of how much time has passed is mentioned, but I still did not understand whether I was meant to think that time was part of the urgency, or whether the story developed over the span of years. Perhaps this was intentional in order to ensure the reader’s continued sense of shared bewilderment with Chiyo.
Other than the issue of time, I quite enjoyed this novel. It is a story about a shift in time and space, but it definitely does not fall within the realm of romance. This is a book about survival and the human spirit. It also explores how a person can be at once caring and loving while cleaving their enemy in order to get back at those who were taken from us. This is absolutely a story about a woman’s strength - not the type of strength generally placed in her sexuality, rather it’s about that power we all possess deep in our humanity.
Publisher: Lulu.comPublication Date: 14 December 2011 Format: Paperback
Review appeared on the now defunct Bookworm's Buffet Blog
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