Dona Nobis Pacem by Willa Okati

[reviews_and_ramblings]

Dona Nobis Pacem is one of those lost pearls that sometime you find; a lost pearl is a book you start thinking to read a nice and good novel (since you like the author and the publisher), but maybe a bit on the average side. You start it maybe on the brink of sleep, already with half mind shut down for the night, and soon realize that you are reading something different, that this is not your usual average novel, that you have on your hand a special romance.

Dona Nobis Pacem is an historical western romance; there is not precise time period, but probably it's the late nineteen century. Donnell is a mute saloon owner. He is born mute, the son of a "soiled dove" that died two hours after giving birth to him. People told to those women to let him die, that it would have been a pitiful thing to do, but another woman, Bettina, didn't listen anything of it and raised him. As often happens when you are born in certain places, Donnell has always spent his life in saloon and brothel; he has a clever mind and did a bit of money with gambling. He used that money to buy his own saloon and now he lives there with his "mother" Bettina and an impromptu family made by his employees. Donnell communicates through his hands and the music he learned, he is now the piano man of the saloon, but his music sometime also conveys his moods. Donnell has also soon learned that he prefers men, but it's too dangerous to indulge in his preferences with temporary lovers, and so he swore to Bettina to be careful.

Then a day Donnell sees a man in front of his saloon. Nathan is young and beautiful, with big blue eyes and a stubborn behavior. He has nothing, not even the right clothes to be under the sun, but he is also to stubborn to accept help without giving something in exchange. He wants a job, but he is too dirty, weak and "odd" to find one. He collapses in front of Donnell, and Donnell takes him home, like a stray dog. For Donnell it's love at first sight, maybe also since Donnell is lonely and he recognizes another lonely soul in Nathan. During the day and night that Donnell spends to take care of a feverish and delirious Nathan, the story of the man comes out: he was a seminarist and threw out from the "church" when he didn't pass the last temptation test; Nathan has desires for men and this is the biggest sin.

Nor Donnell or Nathan are really strong characters, at least in a physical way; they both have a strong will, but in my mind I built them more ascetic; Nathan with his latin words, and Donnell with his elegant hand moves, they are a bit of a bohemian artists soiled by the dust of the Far West. Even if Donnell, with his disability, should be the weaker one, it's not like that: both Donnell than Nathan are at the same level, both of them have their own disability, and they compensate each other.

After that, the story is not much more complicated, it's more or less based on Nathan and Donnell's discovery of each other, of their tentative to build a relationship, a relationship that will add the last piece to Donnell's odd family, a companion for himself. As Nathan says, they are both fallen angels, and their love is not a sin inside the strange haven of Donnell's saloon, doesn't matter what happens outside. It's not the purpose of this book to be realistic, to show you that it would have been impossible for Donnell and Nathan to have a life together, even in that particular condition. It's not that the novel underestimates those problems, they are there, just outside, it's only that the author prefers to have a more romance sight on the story, to let you dream and believe that it's possible for two fallen angels to be happy together.

http://www.changelingpress.com/product.php?&upt=book&ubid=1682

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Comments

[mistry89.livejournal.com]

Thank you, Elisa - I hadn't heard of or noticed this one. I'm going to add it to the TBB, I like the hint of fairy tale that seems to run through her stories.
Cheers :)

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

Even in an historical romance she still preserves that fairy tale taste. Elisa