Salina Christmas

Independent reviews on Storygraph, the book review platform and aggregator followed by 3.8 million users worldwide.

The Keeper Of My Kin: The Constant Companion Tales

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“The Keeper of My Kin: The Constant Companion Tales almost defies categorisation. It is memoir and cultural, mythic, family history, historical non-fiction, short story and mystery all in one. Fascinating and engaging writing and an invitation into the tumult of the history of Malaysia and the lenses, stories and layers that are passed through the generations and that you are passing on to Malaysia and the world.

Although both in terms of style and content it is completely different, it resonances with Amitav Ghosh perhaps because the last book I read of his was The Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis set in the Banda Islands… not too far from Malaysia.

I’m looking forward to reading the sequel A Request For Betrayal: The Constant Companion Tales and the third installment of the trilogy once published.”

A Request For Betrayal: The Constant Companion Tales

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“Such a great read and it’s really almost in a genre of its own. As with it’s prequel The Keeper of My Kin: The Constant Companion Tales, A Request for Betrayal is at once a memoir, family history, history of Malaysia and the regional dynamics, mystery, mythology and how these all weave together. The story is formed of shorter, interlocking fragments that could potentially be read in any order, and the evidently work as stand alone short stories but here all together they paint a broader picture. Sometimes the exposition jumps around in time, occasionally there are details that repeat for the reader of the novel, which would be necessary exposition for a reader of the pieces of the chapters as stand-alone short stories.

Salina Christmas’s writing is engaging and compelling and a fusion of all the elements. In a broader sense it is about the way worlds old and new intersect and overlap. Did the events in these fascinating tales happen in the way described? Is it fiction? Here the question itself somehow collapses. A Request for Betrayal is possibly magical-realism-adjacent but so rooted in history that it is quite possibly all true.

I don’t want to give any spoilers, but if you are looking for a journey into the palimpsest of the history of Malaysia then I highly recommend you read A Request for Betrayal. I gather a third book is on the way. I hope it is available soon.

Also this would make an amazing film or series… who wouldn’t want to see a film with were-tigers in it. There’s a whole genre of horror here just waiting to happen. This series of stories may just be the start.”