A review by trishacole
Amethyst Pledge by Leonie Rogers

adventurous inspiring fast-paced

5.0

An ode to the feminine. Amethyst Pledge, somehow, reminds me of the beauty of the Pagan religions. It's a fantasy book that doesn't have anything to do with religion. Still, how the female characters are described in this book reminds me of the importance of the feminine in matriarchal cultures—Leoni Rogers created the Lady, instead of "the Lord." Kazari is our heroine, unlike the "charming prince" or the "strong male warrior" of other books. The feminine has been rescued and empowered in literature—by women themselves—as well as at the end of the 20th century, there was the rebirth of a religion considered dead for so long that humanity had almost forgotten that it once had existed. The Pagan religions came back, especially with Wicca, but not only. The Pagan faith is the worship of a Great Goddess, seen simultaneously as the Lady of Life, Death, and Regeneration. The Lady (still talking about Pagan religions, not the book) had a thousand faces: in Anatolia and Minoan Crete, she was Cybele, while in Egypt, it was Nut, and in Africa, her name was Nana Buluka. In Canaan, she was Astherah or Ishtar. The face of the feminine in Amethyst Pledge, both in the Lady and Kazari, together with the magical realism of the fantasy fiction, reminds me of the story of the feminine and the feminism and how the humankind tried to set up a place for women and reduce them to an adjuvant role that doesn't fit them. This remarkable book made me think about the role of women throughout history.