Judith‘s review of Sehra’s Honor by Kama Spice.
Rawa is an Independent. A cat shifter who left his pride as soon as he could, shortly after his sexual Awakening. He had looked forward to the day when he could excape his father’s abuse and travel the pridelands–making his own way and carving his own destiny. But in leaving behind his pride of origin, he also left behind Sehra, the only female who made his blood rage furiously.
Now Sehra’s father has promised her to a future Leader King in the Eastern Territories. For years after her Awakening, Sehra longed to feel the heat of Rawa’s skin against hers. But having given up on his return, she has agreed to the match and a date has been set.
Although Rawa has tried to forget Sehra, the thought that he might lose her forever is unbearable and he begins a race against the clock. Rawa must stop this ceremony and claim Sehra, once and for all.
Feline shapeshifters, the lush terain of the pridelands, love given and love abandoned–it is all here in this novella about a young Independent who needed to be free of an alcoholic and abusive father, but who had to also leave behind the woman who held his heart. Rawa’s absence for seven years has just about killed any hope in Sehra’s heart that he would ever return, and because she no longer lived in anticipation of that return, has agreed with her greedy and ambitious father’s plan to mate her to the heir-apparent of another pride in a distant territory. That is, until the summer solstice festival, when the almost forgotten scent of her heart’s desire once again wafted past her body. Rawa–he was here–and he had returned for her. Even after their heated reunion and after Sehra imparted the news that she was being mated to another, Rawa believed that the ancient law of mating would prevail. He couldn’t have been more wrong. Sehra’s father was not to be thwarted in this, and under duress and with her mother’s compliance, Sehra was bound and taken to her waiting mate in a distant land.
These felines live in a society that is ordered by their lineage–designated by color in accordance with the edit of “the Ancients” who have granted both psychic and physical gifts and abilities for the preservation of the species. Rawa is a Copper, deemed a less important lineage because his gifts were connected to the physical. Sehra was an Onyx, deemed much more lofty because she could communicate with “the Ancients” and be a conduit of their wisdom to the community. Sehra’s father was mating her to an Emerald in the attempt to increase his family’s social status.
This is a rather complicated story and contains lots of surprises. It even involves a pride known as “the Violets” made up of women only, females who mate temporarily for the purpose of procreating, who retain the girls and send the males out as independents when they are old enough to sustain themselves. They are women who have become strong and who do not wish to be dominated or controlled by men. They are “there” for Sehra when she needs them and she even forms a very close bond with one of them. But only because she believes Rawa is dead.
There is a very dark side to this story as well. Family love is sacrificed to greed and ambition. The good of the pride is put in jeopardy by one man’s drive for power and position. But in the midst of all this there are wonderful discoveries–loyalties and abilities that were previously unperceived. There is always something terribly satisfying when two people who want and need to be together are united in their struggle for their long-term relationship. So it is in this novel. Kama Spice has done a very decent job of putting this story together. Sehra is a very strong woman, one who has come to be comfortable in her own persona, who has learned that life doesn’t always give us everything we want, who was willing to move forward with her life when she believed Rawa was forever gone. Yet she was willing also to fight her family and whomever else she needed to in order to win her love when she realized he had come for her.
Rawa was strong, too. He had survived the prejudice of his pride, the physical and emotional abuse of his father, and the terrors and trials of being an Independent. He had never really given up his dream to be with Sehra. Now he is willing to use all he knows, all he has gained, all his strengths to win his love and to fight for their right to be together. You just have to like a guy like this. Both these characters display a powerful tensile strength, a formidable determination to wrest the best that life could offer. It may be fiction, but it is the kind of lesson all people need to learn. No matter the odds, giving up hope just isn’t an option.
So I think there is lots to enjoy here. It is a powerful love story; it is a creative look into a shapeshifter lifestyle and society; it is a novel that will satisfy both the paranormal and romance appetites.
I give this story a rating of 4 out of 5.
You can read more from Judith at Dr. J’s Book Place
This book is available from Ellora’s Cave. You can buy it here in e-format.