9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fantastic Journey - 4.5 Stars, October 8, 2007
This review is from: Wind Follower (Paperback)
The Wind Follower by Carole McDonnell is a fascinating journey into African History. The fantasy novel encompasses so many issues and handles them with aplomb. Wind Follower is a story about ancient African societies and their customs, cultures and traditions. So many issues are explored in this novel that resonate in our world today. The issues of race, class and religion are explored in ways I have never read in a fantasy novel. Being told from the fantasy angle only makes it more interesting.
The book follows the life of Loic and Satha, a married couple from different tribes. There are three main tribes that are divided by race and color. There is the white skinned, the light skinned and the dark skinned tribes. Loic is light and his wife, Satha, very dark. The personalities, customs and rituals of these tribes are discussed in-depth. It is very obvious Ms. McDonnell has done extensive research on ancient African tribal customs.
What makes Wind Follower such an intriguing book is how the themes of spirit and ancestor worship are amazingly intertwined with a strong Christian message. Some readers may find the perceived Christian angle difficult to digest because there are well described scenes of sex and violence. However, I found them integral to the story of Loic and Satha because it explored their relationship and how hard they worked against all odds to be together. A main component of the story is about Loic fighting for Satha's honor which would not allow the story to be told in any other way. Ms. McDonnell does an amazing job of making the characters in a fantasy, completely human.
Wind Follower is a compelling read from start to finish and I highly recommend it to all readers. This book is the type that can inspire conversations for years to come.
Angelia Menchan
APOOO BookClub
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Terrific Fantasy that Reads like Spiritual Folklore!, November 13, 2007
This review is from: Wind Follower (Paperback)
What a read! I loved this book.
An immature but fervent young man at odds with the spirits of his people, yet destined for some greatness he doesn't comprehend or believe; a woman of virtue and selflessness of a different tribe and color who must marry this young , flawed chieftain's son besotted with her looks and manner; and a crucial historical moment when their peoples are threatened by an outside tribe intent on conquest as their religious right: That's the premise of WIND FOLLOWER. Much conflict and growing up ensues.
Carole McDonnell, an author with graceful prose and a fierce talent, has penned a delightful fantasy that rings with echoes of human history and anthropology as well as abounding with Biblical allusions. The combination of her skill in storytelling, her finely realized world with its various cultures and customs, and her definite and unapologetic Christian worldview is one I found resulted in a tale that is exhilirating and refreshing, upholding Christianity within a fantasy framework in an age and genre generally cynical about or skeptical of or openly hostile to such a worldview.
This is a novel that allows for the variety in its fiction that is naturally found in the real world. It's not a Euro fantasyland such as Tolkien's or Lewis' or a host of others that seem to have one or both feet stuck in medieval England or Ireland. No, this one has too many suggestions that its world is set in a place akin to frontier America, while not being bound point by point to that era or geography. There are suggestions of Asia, of Latin America, of Africa (Muslim and pagan and Christian), of Anglo settlers slash conquerors, of Native Americans.
There are three main resident tribes, each with its own characteristics and customs and appearance--one evoking Africa, one a blend of Asia and Native Americans, one less quantifiable but seemingly akin to Latino-mestizos. And there is the supernatural "tribe" composed of legion of beings who interact with the native peoples in various ways, not all of them seemingly worthless or wholly benevolent. There is something more complex at work, and all may not be as it seems.
The human story centers on two characters, an impoverished spinster-woman of the "African" tribe, and a man who is a chieftains's son of the "Asian/Native American" tribe. For him, it is love at first sight. For her, not so much. And the story of his wooing and her resitance, and then of the complications that come into their married life--including some significant treacheries and tragedies--build to a climax that will affect the entire world, and will remind readers of the most significant spiritual narrative of the last 2000 years.
The story is affecting as a love story, as a quest story, as a tragedy, as a heroic tale, as a tale of spiritual warfare. And the voice that the author uses is effective for the telling of such a story, both musical and poetic enough to give it the feel of an oral retelling of a great folklorically-enshrined history, and non-contemporary enough in the sound to feel both culturally different and sacred.
I heartily recommend this to both Christians and non-Christians. Christians familiar with their sacred texts will easily pick up on the multitude of paraphrases and allusions and it will enrich the meaning. But a warning note for those who are on the prudish side or have a thing about sexuality in fiction: There are some scenes that you may find offputting. I found they added and did not detract from the story. But then, I find asexual depictions of romance and marriage false and gynecological exam depictions of sex gratuitious. Carole McDonnell walks the line perfectly. Enough that it feels like real people with real experiences. Not so detailed that you feel as if you stared into someone's bedroom at the wrong time.
Non-Christians will enjoy a tale of romance and adventure and the seeking of one's identity and of truth. Well, anyone can enjoy that. Plus good writing.
If I had to pick out one negative, it's the numerous typos--excess words, missing words, and other booboos-- that the copyeditor should have caught. I hope the book goes into multiple printings and gets a wide readership, but please, for the second and other printings, can the editors at Juno fix those errors? This story deserves the best presentation possible. At the same time, I'd like to thank Juno for having the vision to publish this fine story that is unashamedly theistic.
Oh, and the cover is kicking, but it really should feature both the strong female, Satha, and her spouse, Loic. It's a dual story that is belied by the emphasis on Satha on the cover.
Thumbs up. Very high up and wagging with pleasure.
Mir
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Great beginning but sputtered in the end, March 25, 2010
This review is from: Wind Follower (Paperback)
Wind Follower, by Carole McDonnell, could be reduced down to the simple tale of "man falls in love with woman, man loses woman, man gets woman back" story, but that would lose a lot of depth of this story. The writing style of this novel is gritty and brutal which adds a lot to the tribal interactions of characters. The main characters are fascinating and damaged--something I enjoy greatly. However, all of the characters, primary and secondary, suffer with rapid changes of emotions throughout the story, which made it difficult to follow the complexity of the inter- and intra-tribal relationships.
I loved the world-building except for the foreign words interspersed throughout the book. They took me a while to translate into analogs of my own experience which pulled me out of the story.
The first half of the book is my favorite, for the world and character building, the interactions and even the religion. The final quarter I did not enjoy as much. I felt it ended too quickly without a satisfying ending. The rapid changes in emotional state turns into sudden changes in abilities, comprehension, and plot revelations. The emotional rapport that the author gives to the readers snaps with this ending and what could have been an enjoyable ending came out as a sputtering stop. I wasn't aware of the author before reading this and I felt that the ending was inspired too much from Christian tales, in specific the stories of Jesus and Moses, with just a few of the names changed as appropriate. Even with those influences, I'd rather see the ending built up a bit more and less copied from already established stories.
One could say something about judging the book by its over, but I absolutely loved the cover on this one. Would I read it again? Maybe once or twice more, but I'm likely to set it down two-thirds into the story simply because of the ending.
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