Dancing With Wild Woman by Parris Afton Bonds - Fiction book review

Dancing With Wild Woman

By: Parris Afton Bonds

Published: February 21, 2012
Format: Kindle edition, 241 pages
ASIN: B007C7WOPI
Publisher: Parris Afton, Inc.














Janet Lomayestewa, back to her roots in the Hopiland and working as a tracker, battles against alcoholism while seeking to regain custody of her developmentally challenged daughter Molly. she faces a new challenge as the world begins to go out of balance with a series of grisly murders, drawing her ever more deeply into the land of the Hopi, in the spellbinding, thriller novel Dancing With Wild Woman by leading romance author Parris Afton Bonds.

Parris Afton Bonds weaves a compelling tale of the Hopi and their worldview that combines elements of both this world and one just outside of ordinary perception. The Hopi believe that they must continue to dance to prevent the world from losing its balance. Within their land, however, the murders taking place share characteristics of both the visible and the supernatural world. The theme of duality and the uneasy alignment of two worlds coexisting appears throughout the novel. For Janet Lomayestewa, with an uneasy foot in both the Hopi world and the white world, this lack of balance in the universe is personified and given a human face.

Parris Afton Bonds (photo left) provides additional reminders of imbalance as astrophysicist Jack Ripley seeks his exotic energy creating prototype. Jack also find his life out of balance, and lives in both the past and the present, continuing the novel's theme of duality. When Janet Lomayestewa meets Jack Ripley, their journeys entwine into a different form of balance.

Just as the Hopi must dance to keep the world from disaster, so too must Janet finally learn how to dance to restore balance to her own life. With Jack as a potential partner in the dance of life, Janet experiences an epiphany that perhaps her world can be brought back into balance by accepting and learning the challenging steps of the dance.

Within the world created by Parris Afton Bonds, there are strong themes of balance and being whole as a person and at one with the universe. With the metaphor of the dance as the key to restoration of life, as well as the keeping of balance in the world, the author utilizes the literal dancing of the Hopi, as well as the need for Janet to become a good dancer, as symbolic of the dance of life for humans, the world, and the universe as a whole.

The balance theme continues throughout the novel, as a constant struggle and conflict, between the characters on a personal level, and between the modernizing Progressive Hopi on the one hand, and the ancient way of life protecting Traditionalists on the other. As the murders continue throughout the Hopiland, the tensions between Traditionalists and Progressives becomes ever more out of balance. The dance must be continued to restore the community and the global balance.

I highly recommend the page turning thrill ride novel Dancing With Wild Woman by Parris Afton Bonds, to anyone seeking an engaging tale of Hopi culture, a murder mystery, and a fascinating story of love and redemption. This novel will not disappoint you as you seek to solve the many mysteries, both literal and metaphoric, to the very last page.