Customer Reviews

Windwalker

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

If one inspects Natasha Mostert's website, one can grasp that with her education and background in language & music that she is trying to evoke a mood more than tell a formulaic romance in Windwalker. She is writing a bit more intelligently & with a lot more research than the average romance writer. In fact, this novel is actually a modern retake of a brooding gothic romance & it is likely the error of US distributors to dub it a romance. The UK book cover seen on Mostert's website is much more evocative of the book than the US cover (sand dune, wolf, pensive woman). Windwalker uses the environment as a character in the book via description like the carribean in Wide Sargasso Sea or the moors in Wuthering Heights. The love story is doomed, well at least in their present lives, but this book offers a lot to a reader willing to explore the african desert & some of the history behind what a soul mate is. If you like Bronte, The English Patient or tragic love stories, then I recommend this book to you. If you prefer a quick romance that doesn't require you to think, then you will be frustrated with this book. I agree that Mostert needed just a little more lingering with a few plot lines to smooth this effort a bit (although I am a skimmer & I might have missed a bit). All in all, I was impressed enough to write a review & this book has the scaffolding to make an excellent movie that could be as picturesque as Titanic, The English Patient or The Sheltering Sky.

Justine Callaway and Adam Buchanan are two people deeply unsatisfied with their lives and burdened with guilt from their past actions. Adam is exiled in the country of Namibia after murdering his own brother; Justine moves into his family's home to get away from everyone she knows after the death of her brother in a fire she caused.

And so it goes on. This novel is over-the-top, from the overbearing mother, to the stalker, to the evil arch-nemesis who clubs baby seals, and finally to the whirlwind romance that would never occur between two people at the speed and intimacy and situation as it does in this book.

Also unfortunate is the attention given to detail in this novel. We are given a bunch of meaningless descriptions of the landscape and the house rather than learning why the characters are the way they are. I was interested in Justine's relationship with her brother, but the backstory was summary, not description. Whereas the description of the house was huge, yet not very relevant to the plot.

I would not read this book again, nor do I recommend spending money to buy it. I gave it two stars because I could finish it, and there wasn't anything glaringly awful about it, which is my criteria for one star.

I don't buy books if I don't think I'll like them.
Imagine my chagrine at this book I could scarcely finish!
I think it is one of the worst things I've forced myself to finish because I paid retail for it.
The lead characters are self indulgent people who caused the death of their siblings either on purpose or unintentionally.

These aren't people I felt sorry for or rooted for in any way.

This book follows the lives of two people whose lives have been one disappointment after another. That in itself was what made the book interesting to me, but the characters were not well-developed and the plot line seemed a bit chaotic, as if the author was simply trying to add length rather than substance. I kept reading hoping it would get better, but the ending was the most disappointing part of the whole book. I definitely do not recommend this book to those readers looking for a great paranormal romance.

Justine is a photo-journalist escaping from her past by taking a job as caretaker of a deteriorating English Manor. Adam is a loner who murdered his brother and exiled himself to the remote African coast. Both lost in their lives are seeking something to bring redemption to their souls.

Perhaps the two are destined to meet. Justine discovers that the English Manor she lives in holds a dark secret. Adam, the heir of the Manor, killed his brother and then fled the country to escape arrest. Justine begins to seek any information about Adam.

Adam, half-way across the world, seeks his soul mate that he believes he has searched for through all time.

While Mostert has set up a good story idea the book simply fails to give the reader any reason to care about her characters or their story. The book includes sweeping lyrical descriptions of the desert sand, ocean and the sand wolf and his family. Also included are great descriptions of the English countryside and the beautiful Manor now fallen into disrepair. What is not included are characters with heart or souls that allow the reading to fall into their lives and care about what happens to them.

While the book contains some elements of the paranormal such as reincarnation and ghost photographs, it simply doesn't make any of these elements believable. The plot is driven by multiple storylines and often looses focus from the prime message of reincarnation. Justine herself continues to disbelieve Adam's claim that they are reincarnated lovers through the end of the book. Perhaps, Justine's disbelief brings about the disbelief by the reader.

Mostert has too many story lines in the book and often drops or ends a plot abruptly. A watcher that we meet at the very beginning of the book becomes a lost by the middle only to show up but to have no real significance in the story. Other storylines are dropped like Justine and her brother's death. Adam and his obsession with the Sand Wolf.

Overall, I could barely make myself finish this book. Beware those looking for a Happily Ever After Romance-this will not deliver.

Justine Callaway is a freelance photographer. Her family is in London. She is adrift though. She is searching for something or someone, yet has no idea who or what. She takes a job as caretaker for Paradine Park. It is to be turned into a spa resort soon by the new American owners. For nine years the huge estate remained empty. The Buchanan family resided there, but it all ended in tragedy. The locals still talk of what happened so long ago. The oldest brother, Adam, had always been at odds with his younger brother, Robert. Their mother preferred Robert and did not seem to care who knew. Robert could do not wrong. It is said that Adam murdered Robert one night, outside, while the house slept. Adam then disappeared. It is said no one witnessed it, but everyone knew Adam was the killer. The mother killed herself shortly afterward.

The estate fascinated Justine. She begins taking photos of the house and grounds. But when she develops the film in the dark room, ghost images of a wolf keep appearing. The wolf is not on the negatives though. Even stranger, when she develops the same negatives again, the wolf is still there, but has moved! She also finds herself drawn to Adam, though she has never met him. She has only seen his picture. Justine begins to wonder about her sanity. Yet she is determined to find him.

Adam Buchanan now goes by the name Adam Williams. For the past nine years he has lived in Southeast Africa. He lives in a ghost town, like a hermit, with very few friends. He spends most of his time scuba diving or observing a family of strandwolves (brown hyenas). He and his close friend, Mark, are having trouble with a cruel man named Grachikov. Grachikov is cares nothing for wildlife and slaughters animals for profits, whether it is legal or not. When Adam sees a picture of Justine in a magazine, he believes he has met his soul mate. They have the same two tattoos. He is determined to find her.

Unknown to either Justine or Adam, there is a Watcher. The Watcher saw what really happened that dark night nine years ago. He knows what really happened to the family afterward too. And now, he is watching Justine.

** Be warned that there is severe animal cruelty in this book! Animals are slaughtered, in cold blood, for no real reason at all. Many readers avoid books at all cost with things such as this in them. So consider yourself warned. In my opinion, there is no real suspense in this story. Readers learn, almost from the beginning, exactly who the Watcher is. The two main characters, Justine and Adam, do not even meet until long past the half way point of the story. The author gives wonderful details of the Buchanan estate, of the African continent, and of photography images. I found them very interesting. It is obvious she did extensive research. This is an author that I will be keeping an eye on in the future. Lots of talent and potential. **

Reviewed by Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews.

I read "The Midnight Side" by this same author, and was extremely impressed. However, this novel is even better.

You will not find adherence to stereotyped/cliched expectations of romance or suspense in Mostert's work. No formulaic plot progression. In her stories, anything can happen. This isn't predictable mindless stuff, you will be disappointed if that is what you want. This book is intelligent, elegant, and unexpected. Her descriptions of scenery, places, events, are brilliant. Show me another contemporary writer who can write like this. It is beautiful.

It seems that most people miss the point of this evocative and haunting book. You have to give yourself to this story and follow where it leads, you just cannot impose your own expectations on it.

I laughed when I saw someone referring to the "severe animal cruelty". This is simply ridiculous.

Beware of spoiler reviews who pretend to give away the ending - there are many twists to the plot, subtle and profound, which cannot be described here in just a few sentences.

Windwalker is a tale of fated lovers meeting -- in a way that will fill you with awe and that sense of anticipation, that flustered need to tear your hair out, as you cheerlead for their pivotal meeting, and the elation you are overcome with when they do, quite finally, meet -- in their current lifetimes, but parting due to the clashing of divine agendas.

Justine is a photo-journalist with a rocky past -- her bitterness over her parents' divorce renders her into a rebellious teenager and later into a suicidal self-destructive adult. She obtains a peculiar tattoo as a teenager without recognizing the significance of the symbol. It turns out that Adam, her soulmate, also possesses the same tattoo. Moreover, they share the the same quote describing joy and suffering, and Justine, too, believes one of her greatest regrets would be not meeting the someone she was supposed to meet.

After the death of her brother, Justine seeks time out from the world and her job by retreating as caretaker to an abandoned mansion in limbo on the market. She immerses herself in Paradine Park, its 30-rooms and tragic history. She is immediately drawn to the painting of the family that lived there - while the place was still well-tended to, the furniture still present, the ghostly feel of the place overcome by its living inhabitants - a decade ago. She becomes obssessed with the oldest son, the murderer who tears apart his family.

Adam is the hero and lover, who is known as a villain and murderer for much of his life. He is driven by his emotions, but he forces purgatory for his soul after failing to leash the animal in him. Although he is the heir to wealth and status, he becomes a recluse, escaping to an secluded city in Africa to atone (and escape the cops). Despite his self-banishment from society, he is still obsessed with the theory that drives his life.

Ever since he was a child, he has had dreams of a woman whom he knows from the depths of his soul to be his soulmate. Although he is plagued with dyslexia, he is a deep, brooding, thinker -- and, his paradigm is based on the idea of reincarnation -- of soulmates, whose lives are blown by celestial winds through time, which intersect in the happy lifetimes. In the isolation and seclusion of the thunderous winds of the desert city he has exiled himself to, he overcomes his disability, and he writes his soul to this unknown woman, whom he is certain he would meet in this lifetime.

And, they do meet. Although, it is after much suspense, and well past the first half of the book. Their short time together is perhaps reminiscent of the fact that there is little in life that is solely pleasurable -- the strife and hassle gone into allowing that little pleasure far exceeds in time.

A beautiful scene:
Although Adam has poured many nights into hundreds, if not thousands, of letters to Justine, he becomes overcome with despair (along with the reader) that he is merely fooling himself, attached to a flawed view of the world. Moreover, he realizes his despicable past -- he, a murderer, and his soulmate, the innocent angel whom he would not want to debase with his association. Thus, in one fell swoop, he gathers up all the letters -- penned in such precise ink, the triumph of his overcoming his dyslexia, the writs immortalizing his soul -- and sends them off into the heavy winds of the desert town in Africa that is his prison from the world. Words of love divine flutter through the air, dancing towards their end, as the elements, reality, destroy their contents.

A beautiful motif:
Throughout the story, there is the semblance of a wolf, an animal of some sort, guiding and representing and foreshadowing. The wolf is seen to rush to Paradine Park before Justine's arrival -- foreshadowing her intercepting the wildness of the winds of fate. The wolf is present as "thoughtographs" (a nifty theory I came to learn from this book) through her photos of what appears to be empty rooms -- photos, which develop to show the image of a wolf moving through the rooms. The sense of the wolf, the animal, approaching her, each night coming closer and closer to her alludes to the winds of fate working, twisting their lives closer and closer together, until the night Adam arrives in her bedroom in Paradine Park. The brutal murdering of the strandwolf cubs signifies the first vulnerability of the wildness of fate -- the force of the lives of others (evil Russian guy) can break its beautiful matchmaking. When Justine is overcome with the despair and pathos of Adam's end, the wolf comes to her, and she beckons it to approach her, but it leaves her -- as if fate telling her that her time is not yet to come. The wolf also guides her in running towards Adam, in the end.

Ultimately, though, I can understand why everyone else decided to wreck havoc on Mostert's ratings in revenge for their tears and heartbreaks... The doom of one lover is caused by some of the most twisted villains ever in a romance novel. I was nearly retching, after forcing myself through the magnum opus of twisted villain #1 and then having to stifle the dinner about to flee from my open mouth through the vileness of villain #2 -- gosh, it was horrible!

The fact that no Deus ex Machina (although, it was a purely possible thing -- as that bozo did leave the tanks within range! - she could have had Adam's mind become suddenly overcome with a windwalker spirit that guides him to it) came to save the day adds pathos points (though breaks hearts... and typical romance readers were probably not expecting a not-happily-ever-after-at-all ending).

The truth is -- the novel is strikingly realistic. With elegant foreshadowing and descriptions of the villains' motives and thoughts, it's undeniable that the events had to happen as they did. (But, jeez, if only he had wandered towards the other caves, rather than waste his last breaths carving out her name...)

The characters are served their purpose ("clashing divine agenda") in their lives. Justine's goal in this life is self-realization, while Adam's was redemption. Adam died by saving his best friend, the good doctor, who is responsible for the well-being of the whole town -- this amends his fratricide. Justine, at first, does not believe in Adam's dogmatic conviction on reincarnation and fated lovers whose lives are but strands in some celestial weaving. She survives, despite Adam's death, and she manages to find joy in life -- though without Adam, it is a limited, nostalgic joy -- and to finally accept and understand Adam's dogma.

The Epilogue makes amend for the heartbreak (slightly - I admit, I felt like crying - whenever my thoughts trampled on this finished novel - throughout the days after I read it. I admit that despite all the superstition I believe in, a large part of me is still stuck in Justine's mindframe: that there is but one life to live and let live.), but we are left with the classic Titanic ending -- I do believe this is formulaic in generating more tears from the reader.

As a final note -- the "explicit" scenes were not so steamy, which when put in juxtaposition next to other romances (whose excellence often apexes in such X-rated scenes), does not actually make it that weak. That is so primarily because of the novel's perks. The characters are vividly developed. One comes to love Justine and Adam and to understand the villains. (However, for a romance novel, I would certainly have made the villains less twisted and demented... Honestly, I just wasn't prepared for their sheer evilness -- not dark, sexy evilness, but icky, sicko, can-sane-men-really-think-like-this mess.) Moreover, the beauty crafted in the story and scenery is simply awe-inspiring.

The ending leaves me wondering: Will Mostert create a sequel of a different life where Justine and Adam do live happily ever after?

I suppose my question would be better answered by the mysterious reason as to why they didn't make a sequel to the Titanic. (1998 with Leo di Caprio)

I bought this new book as I was looking for a new author to review. I was very disappointed in this disjointed story. There seemed to be a lot of work up in the beginning trying to get the reader interested in the main characters. The book was simply a let down from that point on. I found no suspense, no romance, no point in much of anything in this book. I will not read this author's books again.

i thought that this would be an entertaining read, especially since it was from tor. boy was i surprised to find it slow and unappealing. they built everything up about these two people destined to be together and they didn't end up together. It was probably supposed to be romantic and show how these characters grew and blah, blah, blah. All i got out of it was a loss of $7 and a headache. if you are really determined to read this i would suggest taking a ride to the local library and saving yourself your money.