[[OLD]] A Handful of Daffodils (Forgotten Series, #7)

Foreword

Traditions can be unfair and unkind.

They can be cruel.

They can be hostile.

We are heading deep into the Old Ways with this book. In The Haunted Memories we saw first hand how an Old Way Alpha could act and be. We could see the entitlement Malak had over Maggie, the belief that he was above and beyond everyone else. That he was both King and God of his own little world and everyone else were his toys to move and play with as he wanted. However...we did not see the structures that exist within an Old Way pack.

We saw Malak.

We saw his brothers.

We did not see the pack.

Even throughout the series, all we have seen is second hand accounts, New Way packs with Old Way habits. We see bits and pieces that we know are wrong but we have never seen the full scale destructive way of life that is the Old Ways. They are an oppressive black cloud of hostile, systemic oppression kept in place by generations of traditions that have been so twisted you can barely see what they should have been.

We don't get to see those insidious traditions and the very cultures that breed males like Malak, like Adam, like Steve. We have seen the figure heads, the results of these traditions and all of those insidious actions handed down generation after generation. We never get to vividly see how they impacted those who lived inside them. We never to got experience it, see it through their eyes, to know just how horrible these traditions can be.

So that is where Menza comes in. She is our opening, our door, into seeing first hand the cultures and the ways that have brought so much pain and destruction to the shifter world. With her story we get to see the daily life, the societal pressures, the dynamics at play, and the hostile rules in place that keep the females down and the pack in a choke hold of the Alpha.

With Menza we get to see the other side, the one outside the abusive Alphas and the entitled ranks.

With Menza we get to experience the hostile culture.

With Menza we get to uncover what has been hidden.

With Menza we get to see just how the Old Ways can destroy a person, see how it can break them down, and see how it can tear families apart.

But with Menza we also get to see how it's possible to leave it all behind, how despite it all, goodness and kindness, and most of all, love, can flourish even in the more horrid of places.

With Menza we can finally get to see a glimpse of the future where there is nothing left of the Old Ways but refugees and those who love them.

With Menza, we get to see two sides to this twisted world.

And what better character to tell this story, than a young female who has two sides within herself already? Who knows all about the duality of life and how hard it is to belong when you leave one and enter the other.

I hope you are ready to join me on this journey of a world burning down and witnessing the life that can grow from the ashes.

Cheers,

Anna