When Voiha Wakes

Each volume of Ms. Chant's Kendreth cycle is unique, and each successively stronger in emotional insight and depth. Sadly, this is the last novel of Vandarei from her pen. Where "Red Moon, Black Mountain" was classical wonder literature with echoes of Narnia, Middle-Earth, and Scripture; and "The Gray Mane of Morning" was heroic fantasy to stand among the finest such tales, recounting a pivotal event, both just and terrible, that forever changes her world; "When Voiha Awakes" is a romance that pierces and reveals in all its joys and sorrows the human experience of and capacity to love. Set in a matriarchal society, the gender role reversal Ms. Chant artfully depicts highlights the accepted injustices and follies of our own in a manner show more that is enlightening and never pedantic. The further I read, the more I had to read as Ms. Chant relates with unforgiving honesty and insight "emotional levels" rarely achieved in works of fantasy, to paraphrase the review by Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction magazine. It is a work I find I appreciate much more at age 62 than when I was a much younger and less-worldly (and less love-experienced) man. As in all three Kendreth novels, Ms. Chant's prose is near perfect, her skill in this particular work more in the artful, at times playful, conveyance of human feelings rather than the powerful evocative description of the first two novels. This short novel is a delight for any who've loved. show less

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/when-voiha-wakes-by-joy-chant/

It’s about unorthodox love in a pastoral society where men and women live separately, with women doing the hard work of parenting and agriculture (and indeed governing) and men floating around as craftsmen, doing occasional impregnation.

I didn’t find the premise terribly believable; of course it’s a utopia, but I wondered how such a society could come to be, and how often situations like the (supposedly unprecedented) forbidden love between the protagonists would occur. So I’m afraid I wasn’t engaged by the plot, though I can see how it would appeal to some readers.