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Sahara
When three sisters overhear their father's overwhelming deal to sell them into prostitution, they immediately take fate into their own hands in search of their own destiny. They embark on a powerful and compelling journey that takes root in the exotic realm of the Caribbean island of Labadee, later to spring fully fledged in the glamorous cosmopolitan city of New York. Out of the struggle emerges the valiant and beautiful heroine, Sahara, a sensational gold thief who gets herself entangled in sensuous political games and dangerous liaisons. Sahara is a story of love, lust, money, and betrayal that is ingrained with power, politics, and prejudice. The plot spins to a volatile climax that sets the stage for the ultimate scandal in the White House.
240 pages, Paperback
First published August 6, 2014
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188 people want to read
About the author
Angella Ricot
7 books76 followersAngella Ricot is a native of Haiti who discovered her passion for writing at the University of South Florida. The literary award-winning author was featured both in the Miami Times and New York City Caribbean Life newspapers for her achievements. Angella Ricot currently resides in New York City where she plays an active role as a women’s rights activist.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
February 4, 2016
Ricot tells with intensity and depth a harrowing tale of sex trafficking, domestic unrest, and corruption in Sahara. The style is turbulent, terse, and vivid without sounding turgid or overwrought. We have a sense here of being pulled through the book, as if we are being caught up in tornado. There are some clear hints of Toni Morrison in her writing. Sahara finds herself eventually involved in American politics, which resembles very similarly, at least in its lack of ethics, the background from which she arose. I suppose we might look at this book as somewhat of a political commentary in some ways.
February 3, 2015
Griping, wonderful, I could not put this book down
So how does a story, set initially in Labadee, Haiti, that stems at its root from sexual slave trafficking end up feeling like such films as “Scarface”, “Babel”? It also feels like a latter day story of our present day political climate producing the slow kill of civil rights in USA post 9/11? We can identify with the climate produced in the book that speaks of the hyper paranoid mentality of the boogie man from the east? I do believe what we have here is simply genius. Sahara has such biting, satirical quality that it can be called, to my view, ‘a latter day Gulliver’s Travels.’ Ricot has written a classic part satire, Greek tragedy, court drama, spiced with political intrigue, and as paradoxical as this may sound, a satirical-thriller that is spiked by her eye for sharp witticism and acute social observation.
How she makes it all seem so natural? How she spins this into one tale, a tale that seems so seamless, a tale that cross pollenates genres, a tale that is coherent and not feeling a little sliced up like say “21 Grams” did or “The Tree of Life” did is simply her triumph. The story feels near to the authors heart herein lies the key to make what should be an almost insurmountable and difficult task of telling this epic tale translate into something seemingly simple and effortless. This novel will be read fifty years from now.
Ricot places at the core of the structure of this book the theme of human trafficking, everything in this book: Italian mafia, drugs trafficking, terrorists, political theatre at the highest international level, to drug kings, all stems from the fact that the main character ‘Sahara’ a woman from the Caribbean island of Haiti was the victim of sex trafficking. Ricot knows too well that the exploitation of females on this planet is not going away today or tomorrow. From the grotesque cases of femicide (a new term for me even) in Mexico, to the mass rape of Bosnian Muslims in the 1990's during The War in Former Yugoslavia as a method of ethnic cleansing, to facial disfigurement via acid attacks in places like Pakistan, gang rape in India, to deplorable cases of female child brides in countries like Yemen, to the kidnapping of schoolgirls in Nigeria by Boko Harem, suffice to say that crimes of exploitation against women is not going away any time soon. Ricot has chosen a theme that is deadly serious, a theme that is harrowing as well as tragic. There is no small wonder she is able to get her teeth into the spirit of this book.
The nations that this book crosses between are the impoverished, poorest, least economically developed of all Latin American countries, the pro-American island nation of Haiti, with the pathetic figure of Bertrand Aristide who fellates the will of his Western Masters who come to his rescue under the figure of Bill Clinton. The non-aligned island neighbor nation of Haiti’s Cuba that has just revoked her pro-Western puppet Batiste when this tale spins, thus producing a fresh ambience of revolution simmering in the air as Che Guevarra declares before the UN that Cuba is “a non-aligned nation.” Lastly we have our Western overlords, the puritanical United States, a powerful nation.
The protagonist of this novel Sahara is a Femme Fatale. The gauntlet to survive harsh conditions with enormous adversity is handed down to her. She has no choice but to succeed. This could be a vastly grim tale. On the contrary Ricot has produced a truly thrilling read worthy of the company of fellow female writers like Danielle Steel or Anne Rice. This book is a political satire. But this review will fail in its objective to influence readers to read what is my felt sense that this book is a classic, if I fail to emphasize and re-emphasize that this novel “Sahara” reads completely like a work of fiction, for it tells a fantastic epic story that holds your interest from start to end.
So how does a story, set initially in Labadee, Haiti, that stems at its root from sexual slave trafficking end up feeling like such films as “Scarface”, “Babel”? It also feels like a latter day story of our present day political climate producing the slow kill of civil rights in USA post 9/11? We can identify with the climate produced in the book that speaks of the hyper paranoid mentality of the boogie man from the east? I do believe what we have here is simply genius. Sahara has such biting, satirical quality that it can be called, to my view, ‘a latter day Gulliver’s Travels.’ Ricot has written a classic part satire, Greek tragedy, court drama, spiced with political intrigue, and as paradoxical as this may sound, a satirical-thriller that is spiked by her eye for sharp witticism and acute social observation.
How she makes it all seem so natural? How she spins this into one tale, a tale that seems so seamless, a tale that cross pollenates genres, a tale that is coherent and not feeling a little sliced up like say “21 Grams” did or “The Tree of Life” did is simply her triumph. The story feels near to the authors heart herein lies the key to make what should be an almost insurmountable and difficult task of telling this epic tale translate into something seemingly simple and effortless. This novel will be read fifty years from now.
Ricot places at the core of the structure of this book the theme of human trafficking, everything in this book: Italian mafia, drugs trafficking, terrorists, political theatre at the highest international level, to drug kings, all stems from the fact that the main character ‘Sahara’ a woman from the Caribbean island of Haiti was the victim of sex trafficking. Ricot knows too well that the exploitation of females on this planet is not going away today or tomorrow. From the grotesque cases of femicide (a new term for me even) in Mexico, to the mass rape of Bosnian Muslims in the 1990's during The War in Former Yugoslavia as a method of ethnic cleansing, to facial disfigurement via acid attacks in places like Pakistan, gang rape in India, to deplorable cases of female child brides in countries like Yemen, to the kidnapping of schoolgirls in Nigeria by Boko Harem, suffice to say that crimes of exploitation against women is not going away any time soon. Ricot has chosen a theme that is deadly serious, a theme that is harrowing as well as tragic. There is no small wonder she is able to get her teeth into the spirit of this book.
The nations that this book crosses between are the impoverished, poorest, least economically developed of all Latin American countries, the pro-American island nation of Haiti, with the pathetic figure of Bertrand Aristide who fellates the will of his Western Masters who come to his rescue under the figure of Bill Clinton. The non-aligned island neighbor nation of Haiti’s Cuba that has just revoked her pro-Western puppet Batiste when this tale spins, thus producing a fresh ambience of revolution simmering in the air as Che Guevarra declares before the UN that Cuba is “a non-aligned nation.” Lastly we have our Western overlords, the puritanical United States, a powerful nation.
The protagonist of this novel Sahara is a Femme Fatale. The gauntlet to survive harsh conditions with enormous adversity is handed down to her. She has no choice but to succeed. This could be a vastly grim tale. On the contrary Ricot has produced a truly thrilling read worthy of the company of fellow female writers like Danielle Steel or Anne Rice. This book is a political satire. But this review will fail in its objective to influence readers to read what is my felt sense that this book is a classic, if I fail to emphasize and re-emphasize that this novel “Sahara” reads completely like a work of fiction, for it tells a fantastic epic story that holds your interest from start to end.
May 21, 2015
Another awesome goodreads win! This was a great book....I loved the plots,the characters,everything!It's also a book that makes you think and opens your eyes a little more to the events in the world around us.
September 7, 2015
*A Copy of this Book Was Given To Me By The Author In Exchange For An Honest Review*
The adventures of Sahara make a truly gripping read and it is one of those tales where (i) you don’t want it to end and (ii) you can never guess what is going to happen next or work out how she will get out of the various scrapes she manages to get in to.
I found the mixture of fact and fiction where real life characters played their part in her life fascinating and believably handled (e.g. with Bill Clinton and Osama Bin Laden.) All female, especially feminist, readers will identify with this strong lead character and the males would, like me, wish she was their friend. I have never before seen a strong lead character killed off at the conclusion in such a way that a sequel would be possible. Congratulations to Angella.
Review has been done in conjunction with Nerd Girl Official.
For more information regarding our reviews please visit our Fansite: www.facebook.com/NerdGirl.ng ***
The adventures of Sahara make a truly gripping read and it is one of those tales where (i) you don’t want it to end and (ii) you can never guess what is going to happen next or work out how she will get out of the various scrapes she manages to get in to.
I found the mixture of fact and fiction where real life characters played their part in her life fascinating and believably handled (e.g. with Bill Clinton and Osama Bin Laden.) All female, especially feminist, readers will identify with this strong lead character and the males would, like me, wish she was their friend. I have never before seen a strong lead character killed off at the conclusion in such a way that a sequel would be possible. Congratulations to Angella.
Review has been done in conjunction with Nerd Girl Official.
For more information regarding our reviews please visit our Fansite: www.facebook.com/NerdGirl.ng ***
May 13, 2015
Political satire and intrigue mixed strongly with commentary on a woman's place and voice in various societies today was not what I expected when I first picked up this book. But it was so well done that it snuck up on me. Truly a "can't put down" read.
September 13, 2015
This book is a little all over the place, in both style of storytelling and plot. The writing style also took me a while to get used to. There are comedic elements, romance, modern-historical figures and a dark tale of abuse and the human condition. Mix in cavorting with terrorists ex-presidents, mafiosi and drug running with revolutionary politics. There are very many good ideas and potentials for plots to mean I liked it. In the end though I was a little dissatisfied, I wanted more in an easier to read style. I liked it but...
May 17, 2015
I received this book as a first read. It was slow paced. The story was very disjointed and failed to flow. There was a lot of jumping around. There wasn't much character development so it was hard to get attached to any of the characters. The story itself was also very scattershot.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews