Review Tuesday: The Separation by A P von K'Ory #ReviewTuesday #CrossculturalRomance

Bound to Tradition: The Separation by A P von K’Ory

Amazon KDP, 2013

Businessman Erik Lindqvist – nicknamed “Viking” - has problems with women. He doesn’t trust them; fundamentally he believes they are all untrustworthy sluts who exist only to be used and discarded. That’s how he treated all his many lovers, until he met Khira, the brilliant and beautiful sixteen year old from the Kenyan Luo tribe who stole his heart. Despite her youth, Khira seems to have tamed the beast in Erik. Her upbringing as a Luo woman has given her a unique perspective on men and sex. Men are “muscled infants” who must be indulged but also guided by the women, who are goddesses on earth. Khira and Erik have a rather unconventional marriage in which Erik is still free to expiate his lust with other women. At the same time, they are deeply devoted to one another and to their beautiful and talented children.

When Khira secretly takes their pubescent daughter Loyana back to her tribe to be initiated into the mysteries of goddesshood, and Loyana falls ill as a result, all Erik’s rage against women rises to the surface. He brutally assaults his beloved Khira, sending her into a coma. Coming to himself, he realizes that he may well have killed the person he loves most in the world. Both Khira and his children desperately need him, but he can’t cope with the guilt and the responsibility. Despite his mostly happy marriage, he still hasn’t resolved his mistrust of the female of the species.

The Separation is the third and final book in A P von K’Ory’s dramatic Bound to Tradition trilogy. The second volume ends with Erik’s attack on Khira, and his subsequent desperate attempts to get her out of the African bush and into medical treatment before she dies. As the third book opens, Khira has been unconscious and unresponsive for days. Erik is half-insane with grief and guilt. Their five children are traumatized, especially Loyana who witnessed Erik’s attack on her mother, and who feels that she is at fault for agreeing to the initiation. Khira’s closest friend Joyce arrives from Kenya to help care for the family during the emergency. Standing in for Khira, she’s willing to confront to Erik and force him to accept what he’s done.

This book was not what I expected. From the title, I thought that Khira would recover, but that she’d break away from the unpredictable and violent husband who almost killed her, living separately from him despite their mutual love. Instead, Khira remains in a coma throughout most of this novel. The “separation” relates to the fact that she and Erik cannot communicate at all.

However, despite her outward passivity, Khira’s mind is still active. A P von K’Ory is very convincing in her portrayal of Khira’s inner life, as she struggles to understand what has happened, to remember who she is, and to recognize the people around her. She can hear; she can form intentions. However, she cannot, especially at first, command her body to act on those intentions – even something as simple as moving a finger. These visits to Khira’s mind are devastating.

Much of the novel is dedicated to Erik’s attempts to run away from himself and his responsibility for Khira’s condition. I have to say that I found him infuriating. Despite the almost supernatural connection between him and his wife, he just can’t manage to face his own flaws. One can’t help but believe that Khira would be better off without him.

In the end, love triumphs, though I sense there will always be scars that won’t fully heal. Khira fights her way back to consciousness and to her family. Erik finally begins to work on his deep-seated emotional issues. The book concludes with an event full of hope for the future – an event that sets the stage for A P von K’Ory’s second series, Golden Shana.

As hard as it was to read about Erik’s behavior, I enjoyed The Separation. Like the previous books, it is full of vivid descriptions and intense emotion. It does not focus as much on the conflict between Erik’s and Khira’s worlds as the first two volumes of the trilogy, but that tension always exists under the surface. You can’t help wondering when it’s going to explode once more and fracture their lives.

Review Tuesday: Bound to Tradition -The Initiation #ReviewTuesday #crosscultural #drama

Bound to Tradition: The Initiation by A P von K’Ory

Khira and Erik might be devoted soul mates, bound by the deepest love imaginable, but their marriage is anything but easy. Both are brilliant and headstrong, supremely self-confident, willing to take risks to achieve their personal goals and desires. Erik in particular has a passionate, mercurial strength that makes him both the consummate lover and the deadliest of enemies. Khira’s power might be softer and more feminine, but it is equally inexorable. Initiated into the age-old secrets of the Luo women, she knows that men are no more than “muscled infants” who must be kept happy and content at all costs in order to guarantee the survival of the Fertile Planet. Ultimately she trusts her own wisdom more than she does his. In the tradition of her tribe, women are the Goddesses responsible for men and for all of Creation.

When Khira’s and Erik’s goals are aligned, the couple is irresistible. When, despite their mutual love, they feel compelled to make choices they know their partner will reject, they sow the seeds of tragedy.

Bound to Tradition: The Initiation is the second volume in A P von K’Ory’s fascinating trilogy about Khira’s and Erik’s intense and conflicted relationship. In this volume, Khira matures to womanhood. She becomes a mother as well as a shrewd business partner in Erik’s far flung empire. Wealthy, stylish, accomplished and sophisticated, she appears to be fully integrated into her husband’s Western world. However, beneath the surface, she is still a child of Luoland, a woman deeply committed to the traditions of her ancient people. As she struggles to live both in both cultures, rifts appear that endanger not only her marriage but her very existence.

I really enjoyed this novel. Khira becomes more complex and believable as she grows into her roles as wife and mother. The author vividly portrays the sharp conflict between Khira’s ancestral values and those of her husband. As each of them hides things from the other, I felt their relationship becoming a powder keg, about to explode. Indeed, the dramatic final chapters of the novel bore out my expectations.

I wished that I knew more about Kenyan history while reading The Initiation. The book assumes a certain level of familiarity with the politics and the factions of the country and its neighbors, which I just don’t have. I also felt that the book might have spent too much time on the Lindqvist Group’s various business gambits. I understand that the author wants to show us how much Khira has learned from her tycoon husband, but I was not that interested in the detailed descriptions of their wheeling and dealing.

Overall, these are minor issues. The book pulled me along, buoyed on strong emotions. The ending left me shocked and drained. That’s not a complaint, but rather, an indication of how engaged I was with the characters.

I’m very glad I have the third volume of the trilogy on my e-reader, so I can find out what happens next.

Review Tuesday: Bound to Tradition Book 1 by A P von K'Ory #ReviewTuesday #Africa #Multicultural

Bound to Tradition Book 1: The Dream by A P von K’Ory

Amazon KDP, 2013

Kenyan teenager Khira Caroline Oganga comes from a proud line of Luo warriors. Orphaned before she was born, she is her mother’s jewel: beautiful, intelligent, courageous, inquisitive and eager for experience. Although she is deeply embedded in her family and in the ancient traditions of her tribe, she’s also drawn to the English-dominated society of Kenya’s former colonial masters. Given the opportunity to study at St. Mary’s Girls High School, Khira finds herself increasingly confused by the conflicting values of her two worlds.

When she meets brash, charismatic Erik Lindqvist, a brilliant but arrogant tycoon more than twice her age, these conflicts reach a crisis. Despite the seemingly unbridgeable gaps between their status and their cultures, Khira and Erik fall in love, and the domineering Swedish billionaire is determined to marry the charming and headstrong teen – even though she has been betrothed since childhood. Khira is more than willing to become Erik’s wife, but insists that their union be on her terms. Somehow she needs to balance the expectations and rituals of her native culture against the demands of Erik’s world, and her own surging desire.

The Dream is the first book of the Bound to Tradition trilogy, which charts the sometimes rocky course of Khira’s and Erik’s relationship. I found it utterly fascinating. A P von K’Ory provides an in-depth introduction to Luo culture, conservative and “backward” in some ways, amazingly progressive in others. The relationship between the sexes is particularly intriguing. Superficially, men dominate Luo society, but among the women, males are referred to as “infants”. Women are the patient, all-suffering goddesses who nurture, protect and care for the fundamentally unstable, emotionally volatile men.

This perspective, of course, applies equally to Erik, the ultimate alpha male who nevertheless needs the balancing feminine power that Khira wields.

I loved the way the author managed to capture the unique cadence and flow of Luo language, even in English. I have no experience at all with Kenya, but the world of tradition she portrays felt genuine, as nuanced and complex as any society.

The book begins with Erik’s and Khira’s journey to her home village, to seek her grandfather’s consent to the marriage, then flashes back to recount her earlier history, her education, and her first encounters with Erik. In general, this structure works well. The author dispenses information gradually, letting the reader get to know Khira bit by bit. There are occasional “information dumps” that weaken the book – several pages of back story without any intervening action – but mostly we learn about the characters in more natural and organic fashion.

Apparently, Bound by Tradition is a prequel to the author’s Golden Shana series. Erik and Khira are Shana’s parents. Their unusual background is mentioned in the Shana books; I found it highly satisfying to read about it in detail. In fact, Shana’s relationship with Roman in some ways mirrors her parents’ history. Certainly both cases are characterized by a ferocious clash between the masculine and feminine principles, a supremely dominant man tempered, but not tamed, by a strong, confident woman.

Overall, I greatly enjoyed The Dream. I look forward to reading the next volume of the trilogy.