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Description/Synopsis: The Horseman - Award-winning lead novel of the Lands of the Morning Series. An explosive, controversial, ethnically diverse, unforgettable epic novel that is timely and very much alive. Winner of JadaPress Grand Prize, 2004, and POW! Award, 2005, 1st Place, Multicultural Fiction. Written with a you-are-there immediacy. Revolving around a dynamic American heroine, The Horseman is a gripping, epic tale of intense passion, politics, spirituality, esoterica, as well as the roots of the current clashes between the Turks and the Kurds. Complete with magnificent and diverse settings from Turkey and Mecca to Ireland and the United States of America, THE HORSEMAN presents an intense, multi-cultural love triangle with indomitable characters united in their quest for social justice. As Ariadne, the American, Burhan, the Turk, and Mehmet Ali, the Kurd, emerge from the mists of 8,000 BC and reunite in 20th Century Turkey, they play out their star-crossed destinies upon an explosive stage of upheavals and changes. The Fourth Edition, published in 12/2006, contains the bonus abridged version of 'Bianca - Constantinople, My Love,' an historical novel based on the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. THE HORSEMAN will be published in Turkey, in 2008. |
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User Reviews |
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Since I am the author of this novel, I cannot really review it and give it 5 stars :-), though of course I would want to.
So, I will post a review from amazon.com instead.
I hope it will make you scoot over to amazon.com at the soonest :-) opportunity!
Slainte!
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Powerful novel - timely, richly multicultural and cosmic, April 27, 2006
Reviewer: Irish Bard "John" (US and UK) - See all my reviews
Kristina O'Donnelly has written a powerful novel, and not surprisingly, she has won two awards for this.
The Horseman is one of those stories that stay with you long after you have finished reading the book and placed it aside.
As a native of Ireland, of course I enjoyed the parts in the Old Sod, after all the heroine's father Patrick O'Neill is a jolly Irishman, a loving father and husband, open-minded, and a fearless entrepreneur, whose work as an architect has taken him to Istanbul, Turkey.
But of course what was most intriguing in this novel is the intimate look I gained about the heroine's triumph and tribulations in Turkey, and the various issues she grapples with. Ariadne, the heroine, has two loves, one of them is an idealist of Kurdish origin, whose name is Mehmet Ali Mesut, a Sociology Professor in Istanbul, a man who wants to bring land-reform to his fellow Kurds who are under the feudal yoke of his uncle (who is a Senator of a conservative political party). Later Mehmet Ali runs on the platform of the Labor Party, in his hometown, Tarsus. And Ariadne's other love, whom she marries, is Burhan Kayhanolu, of Turkish origin, liberal newspaper columnist, later Labor Senator.
Ariadne (our heroine) is connected to these men through a past life, from a Neolithic town called Chatalhoyuk, in Central Anatolia, a town or call it a city, that thrived about eight-thousand years ago.
Burhan and Mehmet Ali are two friends in contemporary Turkey, but used to be brothers eight-thousand years ago, who had loved and battled over the same woman, Treebranch, Daughter of Acorn. One of the brothers was a warlord used to getting everything he wants, and the other, a charmer, dreamer, with a special touch of handling animals. The evil brother kills the good brother to take his wife. Well, so here is a bit of a Cane and Abel situation, dating to 8,000 BC, showing we really have not changed in all this time.
These two brothers, named Wolf and White Roebuck, have returned to slug it out in the 20th Century. The moral is: whatsover a man soweth, so shall he also reap.
Another intriguing part of this novel is the neolithic settlement, Chatalhoyuk. Kristina O'Donnelly has written about life in this era, in the mists of pre-history, quite knowledgeably, I would call her the Mother of Chatalhoyuk :-).
Ariadne is a Catholic, and she weds a Muslim, even ends up traveling to Mecca on a pilgrimage. Her husband is a liberal, secular Turk, but as it is shown while he thinks about God and mosques and churches (as he sits on a bench in the garden of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Armagh, Ireland) he has known himself as a Muslim from the moment he has known his name is Burhan. But his beloved Ariadne's mother will not consent to this marriage unless he weds her in the Church.
I am not a very good critique writer, I mean this is not my profession and I don't think I can do this novel justice.
The best I can say is that buy it and read it, you will be intrigued as I was. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Review By Lady Literature |
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