"An intriguing tale"

To obtain the job, photographer Justine Calloway had to lie about being married and that her spouse would join her. When the offer to become the caretaker at remote Palladian Park happens, Jane accepts, needing the change of scenery to escape her feelings of guilt and remorse. Though for the most part alone and aware of the tragic history of Palladian, Jane is comfortable there as if she always belonged there. Thus where she had been indifferent except how it might impact her employment, Jane now detests the plans to convert the almost decade empty sprawling English estate to a spa.

In Africa, Adam Buchanan sees a picture of the new caretaker in a magazine. He is stunned as he has seen the woman in the photo in his dreams. He knows that Justine is his soulmate, but to claim her he must return home, the place of his worst nightmare. The bitter memories of the tragedy almost a decade ago at his family home Palladian Park wash all over him. Adam knows he must confront his worst nightmare, the murder of his brother Dickie in the gardens in which everyone figures he did it especially since he fled England after looking at his dead sibling on the ground.

WINDWALKER is an intriguing tale that is an atypical paranormal romantic suspense. The story line grips the reader with its rotating first person viewpoints that enable the audience to see what makes Justine and Adam tick, especially the fears that motivate much of what they do. Fans who appreciate something radically different in their literature will want to read Natasha Mostert's intriguing yet unique and odd thriller.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted May 18, 2005

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Summary

Windwalker is the story of soul mates: a man and a woman who are karmically linked but who have been frustrated in their search for each other. Through the ages their lives have never connected: the one always walking too far ahead of the other. But just as an amputee may feel in his nerves the ghost of a missing arm, so they know that out there is someone who can make them complete. Will they manage to defy the extraordinary obstacles facing them in this life in order to find one another?

The hero is Adam Buchanan, a man who had killed his brother years before in a moment of uncontrollable rage. He is a man on the run, hiding out in one of the most desolate places on earth: the Namibian desert. Every night he writes a letter to the woman he loves, but has never met. He keeps these letters in a chest in his room, longing for the day when she will place her hand in his and he can share his thoughts with her in person.

'Who was she? Where was she? He did not know, but he sensed that out there was a woman who was prey to the same hunger he was: to the same tremendous longing. She was the healing rib in his aching side. Her mind would be his haven, her heart his refuge. He had searched for her in previous lives as well, he knew that in his bones. But in this life he would find her: he had made himself that promise. How he would manage that, marooned here in the desert, he did not know. But already his thoughts were knocking at the door to her mind, if only she would allow herself to listen.

He sat there in the pool of light at the table, the tiny flame washing the immediate darkness with a yellow glow. Outside his window was a vast dark emptiness. And with eyes half-closed he sat there dreaming of a woman he might have known, in a world where they have yet to meet.'

On the other side of the world lives Justine Calloway, adventurer and gifted photographer but a woman who has her own demons to fight. She takes up residence in a beautiful Palladian house in the English countryside in an attempt to escape her life in London. The house is empty, almost derelict, but to Justine the atmosphere in the rooms feels oddly charged. It seems to her as though the house had trapped within it the laughter and the tears, the whispered words and silent dreams of its past occupants. She becomes deeply interested in the history of the house and the story of the family who used to live within its walls: a family who was ripped apart when one brother brutally killed the other. As she continues to learn more about the house, she feels a kinship with Adam Buchanan and becomes fascinated by him.

Windwalker is a story of redemption and tracks the progress of two people searching for each other with the odds stacked against them. Not only is the prospect of a fugitive finding refuge a remote one, but Adam is also involved in a conflict with one of the other residents of the small town where he now lives -- an ambitious, deeply brutal man who sees Adam as a threat to his plans. The conflict is bloody and may ultimately turn deadly, costing Adam his life.

And even if Adam and Justine do manage to finally find one another, there is no guarantee that they would have a future together. The question remains: if Adam had killed his brother, does he deserve to find happiness in this life with the woman who is the other half of his soul?