No Honour
By Awais Khan

No Honour is intensely powerful, gritty and brave. Find out more in the blurb and the rest of my review and then discover more about the author.
Firstly, thanks to Random Things Tours for inviting me to the blog tour and thanks to Orenda Books for gifting me the book. Follow through to find out more 

Blurb

In sixteen-year-old Abida’s small Pakistani village, there are age-old rules to live by, and her family’s honour to protect. And, yet, her spirit is defiant and she yearns to make a home with the man she loves.
When the unthinkable happens, Abida faces the same fate as other young girls who have chosen unacceptable alliances – certain, public death. Fired by a fierce determination to resist everything she knows to be wrong about the society into which she was born, and aided by her devoted father, Jamil, who puts
his own life on the line to help her, she escapes to Lahore – only to disappear.
Jamil goes to Lahore in search of Abida – a city where the prejudices that dominate their village take on a new and horrifying form – and father and daughter are caught in a world from which they may never escape.

In sixteen-year-old Abida’s small Pakistani village, there are age-old rules to live by, and her family’s honour to protect. And, yet, her spirit is defiant and she yearns to make a home with the man she loves.
When the unthinkable happens, Abida faces the same fate as other young girls who have chosen unacceptable alliances – certain, public death. Fired by a fierce determination to resist everything she knows to be wrong about the society into which she was born, and aided by her devoted father, Jamil, who puts
his own life on the line to help her, she escapes to Lahore – only to disappear.
Jamil goes to Lahore in search of Abida – a city where the prejudices that dominate their village take on a new and horrifying form – and father and daughter are caught in a world from which they may never escape.

Review

No Honour is set in Lahore, Pakistan. It tells a very brave and moving story of Jamil and Abida. It doesn’t hide away from anything, including the notion of honour killings and drug and alcohol abuse. Awais Khan, it feels, tells so much about the culture and attitudes in Pakistan. It’s a tense, but fascinating read. The writing is with strong intent to tell the story of what, perhaps many women experience. It, although a work of fiction, also shines a light on inside Pakistan and at least pockets of its population.

Abida has a fiesty temperament about her when it comes to her baby and Kalim, the man she loves, but sometimes in the background and other times in the foreground are age old traditions and age old attitudes like being pregnant out of wedlock that make it all not as plain-sailing as the western world would perhaps experience.  She is a woman who knows what she wants and who she wants to be with though and as you read, you hope that she does manage to get this in the end, but there are many challenges, including the increasingly erratic behaviours of Kalim.
The book is gritty and don’t expect an easy read, but instead, one of important social and family issues, including that of bringing shame on the family as Abida has, in accordance to the rules. It is a striking, brutal book in many ways and one where fear grips people. It’s hardhitting on a number of pages, but even then, it is one of those books that is irresistable and the end has to be reached. This is a book that may well have readers not wanting to take life and allies for granted ever again.