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Katharina Gerlach
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Juma's Rain: A Fantasy Romance novel set in Stone Age Africa Kindle Edition

by Katharina Gerlach (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
3.6 3.6 out of 5 stars 7 ratings
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A Fantasy Romance novel set in Stone Age Africa

The sun’s rays parch Juma as she leads her all male family toward the main village. Nothing and no one will stop her from becoming the chieftess’ apprentice. So she ignores the heat. Everything will be better near the lake. But the fields that should sprout green by now lie bare, with precious soil cracked and dry. Even the lake, thought to be everlasting, dwindles.

Juma discovers that heat dæmon Mubuntu is out of control and that the rain goddess is still sleeping. But only Netinu, the chieftess’ son, believes her, and he seems more interested in courting her than in the welfare of the tribe.

With her dreams going up in flames, Juma prepares to battle the dæmon and wake the goddess – and maybe, in the process, prove herself worthy of becoming chieftess.

The eBook also contains the novella "The Rain Maiden" by Theodor Storm

A few words from the author


The main character was named after my World Vision Goddaughter from Kenya. However, I made sure their characters differed greatly. After all this is a made-up Fantasy story. It is loosely based on Theodor Storm's novella "Die Regentrude" (Germany 1863) but is set in Africa in a tribe of the little known Nok. All we know about this culture is that they left very beautiful clay statues and kilns behind. As far as we know, they went directly from using stone to iron tools without first using copper and brass like the rest of the word. What little I was able to find out about the Nok, I found so fascinating that I wanted to make them come alive again. And what better way to do that than with a love story.

DRM-free DRM is a form of coding than makes it impossible to legally use an eBook on other eReaders. Since I don't want to patronize my readers, I am not using DRM. This way, everyone who buys one of my eBooks can convert it into the format supported by his/her eReader.

Previous page
  1. Print length
    266 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publication date
    November 15, 2015
  5. File size
    3092 KB
  6. Page Flip
    Enabled
  7. Word Wise
    Not Enabled
  8. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  9. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"An enjoyable fantasy with a complex heroine set in an unusual time period. Especially enjoyable are the complexity of the matriarchal society and the intricacies of the world of the gods. Gerlach's prose has a mythical feel as it moves effortlessly between the real and spirit realms." - Kirkus Review

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B01678TGYY
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Independent Bookworm (November 15, 2015)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ November 15, 2015
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 3092 KB
  • Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 266 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.6 3.6 out of 5 stars 7 ratings

About the author

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Katharina Gerlach

Katharina Gerlach

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Katharina Gerlach was born in Germany in 1968. She and her three younger brothers grew up in the middle of a forest in the heart of the Luneburgian Heather. After romping through the forest with imagination as her guide, the tomboy learned to read and disappeared into magical adventures, past times or eerie fairytale woods.

She didn't stop at reading. During her training as a landscape gardener, she wrote her first novel, a manuscript full of a beginner's mistakes. Fortunately, she found books on Creative Writing and soon her stories improved. For a while, reality interfered with her writing but after finishing a degree in forestry and a PhD in Science she returned to her vocation. She likes to write Fantasy, Science Fiction and Historical Novels for all age groups.

At present, she is writing at her next project in a small house near Hildesheim, Germany, where she lives with her husband, three children and a dog.

Customer reviews

3.6 out of 5 stars
3.6 out of 5
7 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

MC FAMILY
5.0 out of 5 stars Captivating.
Reviewed in the United States on July 15, 2023
Verified Purchase
Juma's Rain was one of the first books I have finished in a long time. As an adult with ADHD, I find it hard to follow most storylines and characters. I was able to flow through this book without any issues. The characters were well portrayed and I was able to remember who was who without going back a couple of chapters to refresh my memory. Beautiful story. Didn't want to put it down. Wishing there might be a continuation of these characters. I look forward to reading more of Ms Gerlach's books.
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Trin
1.0 out of 5 stars I am still wating on it.
Reviewed in the United States on June 3, 2018
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Murphy's Law
5.0 out of 5 stars Creative mixture of stone age God's influence upon a timeless romance story
Reviewed in the United States on October 1, 2016
Verified Purchase
This story brought to life the gods of fire, moon and rain. The humans interacting with them were real with emotions of love and hate. Believing in the power of witches was easy with this story. Never a dull moment!
One person found this helpful
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Kirstie
4.0 out of 5 stars Coming of age in the Stone Age
Reviewed in the United States on March 16, 2016
Young Juma leads her family into the village so her job/position in the tribe may be decided. By birthright she should be the Cheiftess, but her enemy and cousin, the drought plaguing the land, and her own secrets - some of which she hasn't even discovered for herself - bar her from her dream path.

First up the setting. Wow! I love the stone age Africa setting, and while we did get some lovely descriptions of both the plains, the animals, the village, and the people (and that crazy-cool piece of clothing: the kikoi) I wanted more. Aside from that I'm not aware of a great many stories using this location, so it makes it something fresh and unique. It seemed quite well-researched, though I must confess to little knowledge in this area, so it could all be fiction too - not that I'd mind. I'll freely admit it was this unique setting and lovely cover art which lead me into reading this book.

Juma is a great character for young women to look up to, she is strong and confident, but she also has those real insecurities inside too. She's not a Mary-Sue and she makes a good few mistakes and misunderstandings. Not to mention she'll fight for what she wants and what's right.

It wasn't until I got to the end and found the little-known fairy tale this story was a re-telling of that I realised it was a fairy tale retelling. It was exciting since I love reading (and also write) fairy tale retellings. The fairy tale itself is included at the end for you to enjoy also. The story doesn't read like a retelling though, with it's interesting setting, awesome gods, and cool plot.

The storyline did suffer from a bad case of insta-love and insta-friendship. I would have preferred it if Juma and Sundera had maybe known each other as children, but not seen each other much, rather than Sundera just randomly appears, says 'lets be friends' and bamf, BFFs. But this is YA, and I remember making snap judgements on other girls and falling hard and fast for my share of boys I knew no more deeply than by having passed by them in the hallway between classes when I was that age, so it's not necessarily a deal breaker for me.

I felt the pacing and plot were quite strong, though on occasion the start of new scenes would be a little sharp or jarring (only a few times, not consistently).

I state this next part not as a negative of the book, but as a warning to parents of younger teens who may be interested in the story. Since this book is for the upper end of the YA audience and some parents have strong opinions of sex in books their children read I feel I should share that there are sexual elements in this tale. If you want a list of them jump over to my Goodreads review(...) of this book, go to the last paragraph and click the 'view spoiler' portion to see a list.

I recommend this book for anyone interested in African tales, anyone who likes gods vs. humankind stories, and anyone who wants to read a YA book where everything doesn't revolve around 'getting the guy'.
2 people found this helpful
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Anna
4.0 out of 5 stars An enchanting tale
Reviewed in the United States on January 1, 2016
Jumatoa Botango is the only female left in her family and she is intent on claiming the role her late mother gave up when she followed her husband out to the Endless Wells: Chieftess of the tribe. But claiming the role as the chieftess' apprentice is a near-impossible task. Her cousin Kandra, daughter of the current Chieftess, is her direct competitor. The tribe is facing the worst drought in history, and no matter what they do, the witch has been unable to wake Vanamate, Mother of the Tribes and Keeper of the Water, from her slumber. Netinu, Kandra's brother, is insistent on trying to court her - mostly to annoy his mother and sister - adding an additional layer of distraction to her complicated life. Worst of all, Juma keeps seeing a red-haired man no one else sees - one she gradually realises is the heat daemon, Mubuntu.

In Juma's Rain, German author Katharina Gerlach weaves an enchanting tale set in Africa. It isn't an African folk tale though - it's a retelling of The Rain Maiden by Theodor Storm, a German writer from the 1800's. In her retelling, Gerlach constructs a very believable matriarchal society and belief system, giving you enough details to make it seem authentic, and yet not enough to fix it to any one tribe or location. The gods referenced (The Nameless, Vanamate, Monnatoba, Mubuntu) do not seem to come from any popular African mythology that I can find online; either Gerlach created them, or they are quite obscure (not that I looked very hard, other than random Wikipedia searches). While I was reading though, it felt authentic, charming and romantic and I was excited to learn something about African myths and beliefs, which says something about Gerlach's growing prowess as a storyteller.

It feels odd to say this, but I am proud - and glad - to witness Gerlach's growth over the years. The first time I met her online was through the Writers Platform Building Campaign back in 2011, where she spurred quite a few participants and compiled our flash fiction into an anthology, Campaigner Challenges 2011, for charity.

Since then, I have been on her mailing list and have been invited to review a few of her books. One of the earliest was Urchin King, a retelling of The Prince and the Pauper, which hinted at her prowess, but was not quite there yet. The next was The Adventure of Creation, an anthology in which Katharina's short story appears. This was followed by another short story, The Day Music Died, in 2014 and The King's Mechanic: Beauty and the Beast early this year.

What makes this doubly impressive is the fact that not only does she write increasingly well in English, she also writes in German. Or rather, she writes in German (which I am not qualified to comment on) and then translates them into English.

Katharina Gerlach is definitely a writer to watch.

*Note: I received a copy of Juma's Rain from the author in exchange for an honest review.
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