This novel is about special individuals who have ‘the gifts of will’ aka Peithosian gift. They have the power to bend life and molecules around them according to their will, for example, make trees dance and sway, or even persuade another human being to do as they will it (some sort of mind control). Naturally, these gifted communities try to minimize contact with the public so I could go with that explanation for their odd speech pattern.

I hate to restart my review routine with the negative aspects of a book but there it is. This one is glaring so it’s important for me to give this feedback. The writing itself, on the whole, is somewhat awkward and unnatural. I thought I was just prejudiced because I wasn’t used to the author’s voice, so I tried to speak the words out loud. True enough, the words don’t flow easily. Further into the book, I realised even the dialogues were awkward.

There is a bit too much insta-forbidden-love-from-warring-clans for my liking. I get that the author’s making a point of history repeating itself but still. The love-children of these two clans birth a third clan – Teagans – who no one but the Teagans themselves know of their existence.

What I love about this book is that aeons later (the present), Morgan vs Kane clan war evolve according to global development that necessitates more politics, subterfuge, and assassinations.

Conflicts within individuals vary widely because of various character POVs from opposing sides. There’s guilt over past mistakes, questioning loyalty to family over doing what’s right, and love vs family. All these aspects result in discrete characteristics despite indistinct voices between characters.

Another thing I admire about this book is that the author assimilates current and highly relevant topics such as genetic dominance and mental health disorder, specifically bipolar disorder. These played a major hand in the plot.

SPOILERS

The Peithosian Gift is a speculative fiction novel about two warring clans with the power to control the minds of others.

As a whole, this novel is complex, intricate, and simply busy. Being split into 5-parts, (in a time-based split), the novel first helps to outline the actions which set the current affairs in motion, or the chain-of-events as you will. Due to the nature of the novel, there is a vast array of characters, but, it’s easily adaptable – think Game of Thrones, it’s easy to attribute people to a thing, and learn from there.

The Peithosian Gift, is about two-warring clams (families, sharing the same common ancestor), the Morgans and the Kanes, who have violently disputed the right to use their gift. Presently, the Morgans are outnumbered, and subsequently persecuted by the Kanes (for using their gift), most are hiding, while others are on the war-path of revenge. Assassinations, run rampant as the Kanes strive to prevent a mind-controlled world. One clan seeks a ‘saviour’, and the other fears the birth of a child too gifted.

Enter Radha.

A child born to a third clan, lost to time. Powers far superior, to a point where she lacks control. Life progresses, leaders clash, and Radha is forced to run – with both sides on her tale.

It’s an interestingly constructed tale, on what reminds me of modern-day ‘mind-control’ speculation. It may not be a gift, or a power, but it carries an inherent marker, where we (as a people) are controlled by various aspects of the world, and usually at the whim of a minor few. But on a more topical note, mind control, and compulsion raises a moral dilemma of sorts, a play on ethics. Raising questions of phenomena, and senselessness.

Overall, the question worth asking, (with the prompt of the next novel), is it The Peithosian Gift, or the Peithosian Curse? (Count me eager to find out.)