One Year Later - Carole McDonnell

Carole McDonnell is the author of WIND FOLLOWER, which was published by Juno Books last year. She also writes short stories and is an active Christian writer and blogger, and a blogging book reviewer. Here are her thoughts on what her life has been like since her novel was published.

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Hi Tia, thanks for inviting me back for a One Year Later post.

Well, things have definitely changed since I became a published writer. Imagine, a year ago I was waiting for my very first book to be published.

I'll tell you about my new work-in-progress a little later but first I'll tell you about what's happened in the aftermath of the WIND FOLLOWER publication. Well, let's see. A year later, I have made some good friends -- fellow write rs on Juno's list, writers who read my book, reviewers. Of those are, Sylvia Kelso, author of Amberlight, whom I email pretty much everyday. She is on the Juno list and I probably wouldn't have read her wonderful book if we hadn't met through Juno. That really is one of the great things about being published by a small press. I also got contacted by some great writers who have read Wind Follower. The great Charles R Saunders, author if the Imaro and Dossouye novels emailed me to say he loved WIND FOLLOWER. That just made me super-happy. He's so highly respected in the black community as one of the fathers of Black Fantasy. And to think he liked my book! I also felt a little more worthy of some of my fellow writers. Online one gets to know so many writers. Folks in The Carl Brandon Society the Black Speculative Fiction community, for instance. Folks in Christian Speculative Fiction communities. Writers from all over. But once one has gotten a book published, somehow one feels more real. And when one's fellow writers can see one's work, it really helps one's ego if they find the book worthy. Folks are always supportive but it's good to know that one's stuff is really liked or understood.

I also got to know some bloggers. That was neat too. You [as in the author of this blog -tn], Chris from Stuff as Dreams are Made On, Harry from Temple Library Reviews. Quite a few others.

There is also the respect and kindness from folks in the hood. People are happy for me and that makes me happy that they believe in me and see me as representing success.

On the whole it's been fun but there have been hurdles. When you send your baby out into the world, you and God alone know what you went through to write it. WIND FOLLOWER was written when I was in a very depressed suicidal mood and when someone gives it a bad review, the bad review really cuts deep. People don't know what writers go through. So although I have never been one to give a book a bad review, now more than eve r whenever I read a book, I aim not to give it a bad review.

WIND FOLLOWER was given some good reviews and was even presented in two workshops. Once at Wiscon and another at an Australian academic on science fiction and minorities and feminism. That was really nice!

My friend, Nick Wood, a South African YA spec fic writer, says that I and my stories tend to walk the borderlands. I liked that. And it's true. My stories tend to bring together issues about race, religion, etc. And they often lead to lively discussions. For instance, my alternate reality story Homecoming at the Borderlands Cafe was on a podcast at Escape Pod.

And wow! Talk about lively!

Right now I'm working on my work-in-progress, The Constant Tower. Most of my stories deal with interpretation of some kind. WIND FOLLOWER dealt with the interpretation of Scriptures and spiritual things. Constant Tower is about storytelling and the interpretation of text. The main story is about a world where living humans are transported every night to other regions. Most of them live in towers that can be steered if one understands how to steer them. There is a myth of a constant tower which never transports. People seek this tower. It's a story about science, specifically the science of towers and how to operate them. So it's really about technology and resources and how those who have greater technology tend to control most of the resources. (Okay, I've been watching too many stories about the World Bank.) Anyway, this story i s told inside a frame. Like the Thousand and One Nights. In this frame, we learn that the people of a particular planet have a history of the folklore of other planets. Their storytellers have built on these histories, for better or worse. When Constant Tower begins, an aged nameless master storyteller is telling the story of The Constant Tower to a young-also-nameless prince who has ascended the throne and who is intent on killing his murderous stepmother. The young prince wants the story to go in certain directions but the old storyteller has his own ideas. The young prince has heard the story before, though, but he has heard the story from another teller of tales, one the old man speaking to him doesn't respect. There's also the problem of the Studier of Worlds who wrote the written history. He apparently hated the main character of the story. So there is a problem of what to believe. It's fun.

After that, I'll shift gears entirely. It's a dark mystery about a succubus and a Black Christian lady in upstate New York. She meets a bi-racial Chinese-Caucasian man whom this succubi intends to take. It's a multi-culti may-september love story with religious and horror elements. And very erotic. It's actually working. I didn't think it would but it's been a surprise. I hope my Christian fans will accept it. So that's about it.

Life is good.

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Thanks, Carole!

WIND FOLLOWER by Carole McDonnell - Last Post

With WIND FOLLOWER, Carole McDonnell has written a literary fantasy that makes you feel like you are absolutely steeped in another culture. The prose is gorgeous and the characters three-dimensional, with both idealistic traits and glaring faults. Emotions are unsheathed and roil throughout the plot. It almost feels like a walk through a spirit world. Tempers flair and knifes flash at the most unexpected times.

At its heart is a very simple story, the story of a man and a woman who meet, get married and fall in love, in that order. The cultures that they live in have very specific traditions. One is that if the wife of a warrior has a child, it is the warrior's child. It does not matter who the actual father is. Loic's father honors this custom even when one of his wives, the Third Wife (she has no other name that I could find) was unfaithful. The Third Wife is spiteful and vindictive, and she uses her lover to wrong Satha.

The rest of the story is about the ramifications of this evil act. There are twists at every turn. About halfway way through, Satha and Loic separate. A little over halfway through the novel, Loic finds himself imprisoned by the spirits and he has a protracted battle against them. At this point, the plot lost much of its pacing for me, at least during the Loic chapters. During the Satha chapters, she relives the handmaid story from Genesis. Surprises happen at every turn, but don't be surprised if you find yourself as frustrated as Satha and Loic are at their situations.

McDonnell does a good job of giving each of the four races in the novel different faults, but one race appears to have the sole virtue of bearing the word of the Creator. Other than that, they seem to be almost wholly awful. In fact, in the glossary they are described as a "hateful tribe." The concept of an evil race is one that I've long disagreed with in fantasy literature. All too often, you have the elves and they are good, and the orcs and they are evil. You see orcs, you kill them. This is why I enjoyed Morgan Howell's Queen of the Orcs, and why Jim Hines's Goblin Quest is still on my reading list. They explore other possibilities.

In the backstory, the lands of the three tribes are invaded by a fourth. The three tribes appear to be wealthy but they are medieval. The forth tribe however, has guns and explosives. This does not figure prominently in the story, but the parallels to American history cannot be ignored. Especially when the tribes are all gathered to a place. One might be tempted to think these tribes are based on African tribes, but I find stronger parallels with Native Americans.

The plot abounds with conflicts, and not all are resolved by the end of the book. There is the conflict between Satha and Loic, between Loic and Satha's rapist, between Satha and her rapist, between Loic and the spirits, between the spirts and the Creator, between Satha and her Angelini captors, and I haven't even named half of them. McDonnell does a good job with the "conflict on every page" precept of fiction writing.

And she did a great job of keeping me guessing. Right up until the final conflict between Loic and the rapist, I had no idea if Loic would seek vengeance or not. He was specifically ordered not to by the Creator but . . . does he do it or not? I absolutely loved the events leading up to the final conflict and the ceremonies and traditions bound up in it. I've never read anything like it. Loic's choice here has ramifications right up to the end of the novel, and for years beyond.

The dialog reminded me strongly of Pearl Buck's The Good Earth. It has a definite rhythm, and it doesn't feel like natural dialog. Now that I think about it, it almost feels like Biblical dialog. If you read it, expect the dialog to feel something like poetry. In fact, the entire book is stuffed with rich prose. There is no grittiness here; no words meant to shock. It is like a work of detailed art. However, McDonnell does not overdo it like Cecilia Dart-Thornton did in The Ill-Made Mute. It is highly readable.

I can only describe the ending as bittersweet. Happy things happen, but some surprising awful things happen as well. People pay for their choices right up until the bitter end.

WIND FOLLOWER was a lush and impressive debut. It will make you think. It might make you cry. In a few places, it even makes you laugh. This is the type of novel that you will think about for days afterword.

Links!
WIND FOLLOWER (Canada)
Announcement at Fantasy Debut
Author Website and Main Blog
Previous Posts on Wind Follower

An Interview With Carole McDonnell

Carole was kind enough to answer some questions for Fantasy Debut. As you will surmise, Carole and I have been swapping lots of emails and it has been a lot of fun, at least for me and hopefully for her!

Please tell us what inspired you to write WIND FOLLOWER.

So many things. Books come from so many parts of a writer. The spiritual part, the social-racial part, the psycho-emotional part, the intellectual-creative part, etc. I can say that creatively I wanted to challenge myself to write a book which contained high fantasy, honored folklore, and primeval Christianity and that was a kind of emotionally-healing romance.

You call WIND FOLLOWER a Christian fantasy, yet the writer's guidelines at Juno Books specifies that they don't publish Christian fantasy. Was it difficult to find a home for WIND FOLLOWER?

The Christian publishing world is pretty rigid and I knew Wind Follower wouldn't fall easily into their world. I wanted to deal with sexuality, racial issues, interracial-intercultural romances, imperialism, and "pagan" cultures. And I knew they wouldn't want to touch any of those things because the CBA publishers didn't consider those issues "safe" for their audience. I got rejected by CBA gatekeepers with interesting lines like: "I like this book but I would be fired if I published it." Or "It was going along well but then you delved into certain areas..." Or "this is the best speculative christian book I have ever read but our readers would not like it."

On the other hand, I wanted the book to be Biblical in some places and I figured that would be a problem with secular publishers. It turned out not to be. Juno really doesn't publish Christian fantasy but my friend, Nick Woods, a white South African writer, says I "walk the borderlands." And that is true. I'm black and I can easily talk to white folks about race. I'm Christian and I have close friends who are non-religious or who belong to many different religions. I'm staunchly myself, yet I seem to have a kind of ambassadorial quality and ease with talking to folks who would not like any of my "labels." Black, Christian, whatever. In a conversation with a white gay writer friend the topic came up in which we wondered who our audiences would be. She figured her readers would probably be straight. Well, I tend to think my primary audience will be non-Christians. I'll have black readers and Christian fans, of course. So it wasn't hard for Juno to accept me. I'm not preachy, and the story's world is like any other fantasy world...except it comes from a Black American pentecostal worldview. But my readers will probably be pretty much anyone who likes speculative fiction.

During our correspondence, you specified that your novel should appear in the Fantasy section, not the African-American section. Recently, I featured David Anthony Durham's Acacia, and he had the same sort of battle. How difficult is it for a Black author to avoid being pigeonholed in the African-American sections of American bookstores?

I don't know much about the publishing world, really. I know that many Black folks have bookstore sections they tend to visit. But white folks also do that. My black online writing groups tend to question: "Do blacks read speculative fiction? How do we get more black folks to read black speculative fiction?" Honestly, I don't know the answer to those questions. Many of my black friends only go to the religious sections of bookstores. Many only go to the romance sections. Many read anything. One can't really judge what the black reading audience is going to do. The thing is to make the black and minority audience know that there are books out there that speak to their experience.

For instance, I really do not read much fantasy or science fiction. I don't read Christian novels. I don't read romances. Yet I love all these genres...and will waste a couple of hours watching genre movies. But films are different from books. A book is a large commitment of time and I groan whenever I have to deal with high fantasy, or Christian romance, or any kind of literature that doesn't connect to me. There's a high fantasy book I'm supposed to be reviewing. I still can't get past the first seven pages. As a black person who loves speculative literature, there are just so many high-born lords and ladies one can endure....no matter how magical the world. As a black Christian, one can endure just so many white pioneer or country types taming the frontier. For me, European-based high fantasy literature is often as offensive as Anglo-based Christian romance. I want to shout, "There are other ethnic groups in the world and why should I always have to be awashed with Euro-culture?" Christianity, for instance, is not a white religion. Most of the world's Christians are non-white. Yet, most of the world's Christian religious books are written by white people.

If a black person wants to read any kind of book -- religious, romance, speculative fiction -- he/she has to accept the fact that the white culture is the one he/she will be immersed in. Some black readers are tired of that and they know that if they go to the African-American section of the bookstore, they won't have to deal with the stories of the larger culture. The same can be said of the Christian population. Christians don't want to deal with books in which their faith is slammed, or which there is something they consider offensive or "unsafe." (Unfortunately, in this country, the definition of unsafe has gotten a bit out of hand...as I mentioned before.) But, clearly, the white culture doesn't have to deal with the minority cultures' stories. They have a choice. The non-religious segment of the population doesn't have to deal with the literature of the religious segment. They have a choice. The result is that there is all this segmentation and segregation. Unfortunately, I've never really been able to be solidly one thing or primarily one aspect of myself. There is no solid Christian minority culture in this country. The Christian culture in the United States is primarily a white one. I hope to be a multicultural Christian writer...and I hope to be "found" by those who would be interested in reading my books.

Did you have any historical sources for WIND FOLLOWER or did you make up this fantastically detailed world on your own?

Totally made up. When I first thought of it, I wanted to create an alternate Africa that had been invaded by Native Americans or by folks from Asia. There would also be a sojourning peoples who would be a third tribe. But I knew zip about African history, nada about Asian history, zilch about Native American history. Not really zip, nada, or zilch, but you know what I mean. Not enough to actually create a full-fledged respectable alternate Africa. So I decided to just make it some unknown continent on some unspecifiec planet in some unnamed universe. Most reviewers have been assuming Wind Follower's setting is in Africa. It seems that my original thought -- and my lack of specific description regarding the setting-- worked its way into the zeitgeist of the novel anyway.

What is your favorite scene in WIND FOLLOWER?

As a writer, I'm pretty proud of the fall into Gebelda. I like descriptions of hell in novels. It's part of the oldest high fantasy tradition --Parzival, Gawain and the Green Knicht-- to have the hero get into a spiritual eye-opening experiences. Hell or some semblance of the dark place of the soul. And it's part of folklore to have some descent into hell. Plus hell is such an important part of Christian doctrine. Actually, most religions and folklore have some kind of hell, even Tibetan Buddhism...but Christianity focuses on it.

As a person of faith, I like the scene where Loic wakes from sleep and aims his shuwa into the sky....and later Satha's response to the shuwa. Faith is such an odd little thing. One does a thing because one feels it is the right thing to do, and one doesn't question an impression placed in one's soul by the Creator. The fact that Loic would wake from a dream and do something simply because in a dream he was told to do it! And to not question the Creator about the action he is called to do! That's an act of faith. And Satha's reaction to the shuwa is also an act of interpretation of that faith.

As a woman, I liked the scene when Loic first meets Satha. To have someone want me like that. I've been married for 23 years. My husband loves me dearly and I adore him. But we're laid-back folks. Even when we first met there wasn't that passionate overwhelming desire. We're not ultra-passionate folks. But hey, it's the stuff of romance...and I like romance.

I also like certain chapters where "scenes" per se don't happen but where Satha tells about her heart and the existential grief she endures. My soul is in those scenes. I wrote those sections from the depth of my heart.

What scene gave you the most trouble?

The rape scene. Technically it had to be done in such a way that Satha didn't seem stupid. It had to be foreshadowed to the cynical readers who know enough not to trust anyone. But it also had to come as a surprise to the innocent readers who believed in the goodness of people. So it had to be predictable to those who are thinkers and unpredictable to those readers who feel.

In addition, I had to figure out what kind of person the rapist was. This was one of the few times where Paula almost lost her patience with me. (Okay, she really did lose her patience!) She kept telling me: stop being in love with your villain. He's a villain for heaven's sake! So I had to really find evil in him...really really really stop excusing his behavior. That was hard 'cause I was kinda in love with him. I suspect that I will only see how evil he is in about twenty years when I re-read the book from a distance. Paula kept telling me that the character I thought I had written was not the one I had actually written. So I had to trust her on that.

Emotionally, it was a tough scene also because when I was in college about twenty seven years ago, a white guy -- a friend who was very troubled-- attacked me and beat me up because he wanted to sleep with me and I didn't want to sleep with him. He was very handsome, very troubled, and had issues up the wazoo. So it was hard to hate him although he had left me beaten up on the floor with a face and ribs that ached for a whole month. I tend to be one of those people who belittles her own pain because she understands those who are wounding her. Not a sane way to be in life. So it was hard to fully hate the villain.

Did you finish any other novels before you wrote WIND FOLLOWER, or is this your first novel? If so, can we expect to see them in print?

I finished Daughters of Men. That was the one I sent to Paula at fist, cause it was finished. She said, very kindly, "It needs a lot of work." It does. I'm revising it now. And I really mean revising. Not just rewriting. It was originally third person narration, now it's first person. I've also changed the main character. And, best thing of all, I've finally learned how to write a novel. So I am busily cutting off tentacles from this 20-legged octopi and cutting off episodic suction cups that threaten to suck me into some stupid sub-plot that doesn't matter to the greater, larger story.

Can you give us a teaser about your next novel?

I have yet to know if it'll be a religious novel. My faith is in everything I write but some stories aren't so blatantly about religion. It's been said (I forgot by who) that a novel is a conversation between the soul and the spirit. The question in Wind Follower was: Which would you choose faith or family? Faith-committment versus Race-commitment. The question in Daughters of Men is What would you do to become a queen? Friendship versus Personal Expedience.

The main character is the Chimeran Queen. Her name is Medusa. She is a mutant...biologically created like all the human chimeras....worms coming from all her orifices and through her skin. She is a telepath and a mind-reader. She is being raised by an Overseer Prince. The Overseers are also biological creations but they are the height of perfection and beauty. They are also telepaths and mindreaders. She hasn't told them that she is a telepath, however. Instinctively, she knows not to do this. When the story begins she is living in a house on the prince's compound and she gets news of the outside world through conversations with the Overseers. She also sees what they aren't telling her. While they don't lie to her, they do avoid telling her a few important things...like the fact that the other Chimeric people who have been exiled to the terraformed asteroid Otaura, don't want her to reign over them. She also sees their love troubles....specifically the triangle between the prince, a scarred woman whom the prince loves, and the prince's best friend a rebel who helps the standard-issue humans (although he, like all the other Overseers, doesn't really like human men.) She's in love with the prince but she has a special bond with the prince's best friend and so she helps to "cover his mind" and protect the guilty lovers in their love affair.... Well, until....
Right now it begins like this:

I don't quite remember when I fully understood that I could hide my mind from the probing of the Young Men. Nor do I remember when I first understood the extent of my loneliness. But these –memory, comprehension, the passing from youth to adulthood– are small matters and should not make you doubt my narrative. I am the Chimeran Queen, after all, your queen, one of the daughters of men...and I would not lie to you.

Many of my readers are writers. Do you have any advice for them?

Be honest. You never know who might accept your honesty. And what is the use of writing -- of getting published and expecting folks to spend their hard-earned $12.95 on your book-- if you aren't going to tell them about the world as you see it? Editors can be brave and accept some odd stuff. At least, in my case, I found an editor who didn't mind the religious stuff in Wind Follower. Write from your pain and write from your joy. Join critique circles. Learn to take criticism. Even if it's from someone who doesn't seem too bright or too kind. Don't be arrogant, but don't be too hard on yourself either. Try to write everyday. Keep healthy.

And finally, is there anything else you'd like to share?

Just how grateful and happy I am that you chose to read Wind Follower. And that I'm happy to be a published author. Just how happy I am to be loved by God and Jesus, my Lord and Savior. Hey, I had to put that in. I owe God more than I can ever say or describe.

Further email conversations led to another question: I understand that your husband is an artist. What's it like having an artist and writer together in the same house?

Yes, the beloved is an artist. Luke McDonnell www.lukemcdonnell.com He's a graphic artist, cartoonist, illustrator, and comic book artist. His paintings and drawings hang all over the house. He works for Yoe studios www.yoe.com He also used to work for DC and Marvel. He did Iron Man, Spiderman, Suicide Squad, a whole bunch of stuff. If you do a google search for him, you'll see he's pretty respected. And it's quite good being married to an artist. Artists understand each other. He doesn't expect me to be a perfect housewife for instance. If I totally forget to cook dinner for a week or so because I'm in the throes of creativity, the world won't end. And if we starve for a couple of years, that's okay by me also. As I said, we understand each other. If I had married a regular person who expected a typical wife, I'd have been in super-trouble, i think. We've been pretty happy together. However, when we first married he was an atheist, a son of Irish Roman-Catholic atheists. It was tough being married to an "unbeliever" for fifteen years. But he finally came on over to the side of light.

WIND FOLLOWER - Loic is no "Angel"

Don't you love it when you think you know where a book is going, and then are utterly surprised?

As I was reading WIND FOLLOWER, I thought I recognized familiar plot elements from Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles. I thought that Loic would end up somewhat similar to Angel, who is Tess's estranged husband in that classic novel. However . . . Satha actually turned out more like Angel. A vengeful one (no pun intended). I felt like I read the last few chapters with my eyebrows perpetually raised. I'm going to have new brow wrinkles when I finish this novel.

John at Grasping for the Wind finished WIND FOLLOWER embarassingly ahead of me. His review is here.

WIND FOLLOWER - Character Torture

Oh, I can tell that Carole McDonnell loves character torture. And through them, she must love reader torture. (Just kidding!)

I knew it was coming. The cover blurb and foreshadowing in the novel let the reader know what is coming. That didn't make it any easier to read. And now, the waiting until Loic returns has begun. The tension is as taut as violin strings.

The trusting and loyal Satha has found her way into my heart. I knew that she would be betrayed, but like her, I hoped it would not happen. I hoped that she had managed to bring out the best in her enemy. Alas.

As for Loic, I like him as well, but he has much growing up to do.

The alternating first-person viewpoints are much like two old people, recalling something together, each taking their turn discussing their version of the events. Events are not covered twice, but often the narration stops and picks up with the other person's point of view. I can just envision Loic and Satha sitting in front of a house somewhere, perhaps on a swing or a hammock, each taking their turn recalling the events of the story. No scene like this is ever described; this is just something I imagined on my own.

From the cover blurb, I know even more character torture is coming.

Wind Follower - Something Totally Different

Not since I read Thief With No Shadow have I read a book with such a unique plot. I am about 1/5th of the way through WIND FOLLOWER and I have no idea where it is heading.

The story moves at a leisurely-yet-engaging pace through a hasty courtship and marriage. While fantasy is usually rife with romance, marriages usually take place at the end, if at all. This is one reason why this book is so different. I cannot recall reading a single other fantasy where a protagonist was actually married.

Another interesting and unique thing about this book is that while the wife was not willing to marry, she ends up loving her husband. Fiction often makes arranged marriages out to be living nightmares. However, my real-life experience in talking with people who come from arranged marriages is that they are generally as happy as anyone else. The reason can probably be found in WIND FOLLOWER, where the wife has apparently decided to love the husband. This is my own impression and may not have been in line with the author's intention.

"How easy it is to bend to the will of a husband one is willing to love! Yes, from that night, I began to love him, and the more I loved him the more unsettled I became."

It seemed like on that night, she decided to love her husband and be happy with him. It is not romantic in the traditional sense. There is a sex scene which is not very sexy, and I suspect that was intentional.

Shortly before their marriage, Loic has a vision where he is offered a sword from heaven. He is offered it three times before he finally accepts it. Loic has no idea what this vision means, but I suspect it heralds the destruction of his wealthy father's house. This is just a guess.

I made a discovery that I probably should have noticed before. This novel has a gazetteer! Yes, it has all the tribes, houses, clothing styles, places, customs, language and much more, going on for almost a dozen pages. In recent years, I had not seen gazetteers as often as I did in the 80s; are they making a comeback? If so, then this is a welcome development.

Wind Follower - First Chapters

WIND FOLLOWER by Carole McDonnell is written in alternating first person points-of-view. Each unnumbered chapter bears the name of its subject, a la George R. R. Martin. The point-of-view characters are Loic and Satha, who are, according to the cover blurb, soon to be husband and wife.

Many fantasies try to steep a reader into the alternate world by means of language. Few do it well. With WIND FOLLOWER, you can feel the culture through McDonnell's voice. Although it is in English, of course, it feels foreign. It feels like something utterly alien from modern-day western culture. You can almost smell the dust.

In the first chapter, young Loic watches his young friend and "age brother" stoned to death for refusing to worship the spirits. This chapter is very short and feels like a prelude. The second chapter switches to Satha, whose mother wishes to cause an "accidental" meeting with her husband's old friend. Her intentions are not difficult to guess; they are poor and the friend is rich. Satha is unwilling to go, but she must obey her mother. The friend has a young son named Loic, and the story picks up again at his point of view, where we see their first meeting through his eyes.

Normally, I don't find renditions of "love at first sight" to be very convincing. However, read this:

I must have been handsome in my younger days. Or perhaps it was merely my father's wealth. For many, many girls--oh, girls without number--would let their gyuiltas fall from their shoulders as I passed, allowing them to trail along the ground for me to retrieve. Such flirtations fascinated me, but my heart never leaped for any of those girls, pretty though they were. No, not until I saw Monua's daughter did my heart leap. As an Ibeni poet has said, "My heart leaped then, for love had leaped into my eyes." It was my first taste of love, and after such a small sip I was intoxicated, speechless, wanting nothing more than to devour her.

So far, WIND FOLLOWER is full of bold language like this. Not bold as in shocking, but bold as in emotions laid bare.

At first, I thought the characters' tendency to speechify was a flaw. However, by the third chapter I realized that this was intentional. The speeches invariably come from an older character to a younger. In the case of an old man speaking to Loic in a disrespectful manner about Satha, you can feel his impatience and anger. Indeed, as the reader, I felt it myself. Move on, old man! Let me go about my business! I have no wish to hear your drivel! In a culture where younger people must respect their elders, it appears that many elders take advantage of having a forced audience.

It's not a start that grabs you by the throat. However, I especially liked Satha and I'm especially curious to see how she responds to certain events that Loic just set into motion . . .