Bound by Fire: Some light holiday reading

South African mom blogger Eleanor Douglas-Meyers (who blogs at JustEllaBella) has teamed up with Faziela Harris-Davids (on Insta here) to produce a friendship, magic and romance filled book: Bound By Fire.

I think my brain deserves a shut down at this time of year. I’ve been constantly working and getting away on holiday to East London was just what I needed. A break from classes and Nicky has been running around with his cousins. I’ve been eating and vegetating and not even bothering to do much else.

So a nice light book that’s not going to tax my brain too much is just what I need.

Bound by Fire is a series of emails between two friends. They are bound by a unique gift: the ability to actually create fire. The two friends are from South Africa but in this book they are writing from different continents, one in Africa and one in Asia. Zinnia is on a mission to find her biological family in Korea while Jenny is doing some amazing work in Tanzania.

It’s a story of friendship – the kind where you can really let your hair down and tell them everything – but it’s also about how they are making their way in the world – discovering their interests and finding love too. Throughout the book you’ll also notice typical South African conversation which will make you feel like you’re in on a local conversation.

The unique gift they carry has its own meaning – what is its significance? where did it come from? and how does it ultimately connect them? You’ll have to read the book to find out.

Here’s an extract from the beginning of the book:

How do you trade grammar and arithmetic from empathy, hospitality, life skills, and the sense of doing something bigger than yourself?

Yes, I realise that sounded pompous and saviour-like. Can you be brown and have what the internet calls a white saviour complex? I guess “privilege is a spectrum” in a way.

But I am really glad I came.

You can stop rolling your eyes at me, Zin. I can feel it all the way here in Tanzania. I told you stop with that eye roll obsession, you’re one exasperated comment away from giving yourself a DIY brain scan.

……

Seriously, I’m sorry. I should not have said what I said, I should not have left how I left, and I should not have let down the one person who was there for me through so much.

The one person who had my back both when I was heartbroken and when I was the heartbreaker. Who understood my need to not follow in my MBA, PhD, money – focused, pillar of the community parents’ footsteps?

I should not have dropped the only person who would share Wacky Wednesdays with me – one chicken and one vegetarian with two fruit juices, because we told ourselves that the word fruit made the meals healthy.

I’m sorry for trying to shove my beliefs down your throat. For not trusting you to make your own decisions and most of all for not standing by the phrase on our matching tattoos. But I hope you know… You will always be my “sister by choice.”

I have no right to expect anything from you, however, I hope you reply to me.

I have no idea what the time is in Korea right now. I don’t even know if you still have insomnia, or if you might have found a Stray Kids lookalike, to keep you occupied and listen to your conspiracy theories in the middle of the night, but I do know I miss you and I’m waiting with bated breath for your reply.

Also, the wifi here is sketchy at best so if you reply and it takes forever for me to get back to you, please note, I’m not ghosting you, I promise, not this time around.

Want to order? Go here. or get it on Amazon here.

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