Catherine Astl

The Colonists Catherine Astl

The Colonists: three modern day women, three stigmas. What will you learn about yourself?

Women have constantly navigated the dating world, from arranged marriages, to the Victorian marriage market, to today's online matchmaking. But ask yourself: do you think you have it tough in the dating world? Imagine trying to date with a deep, dark secret, the revealing of it means your date flees in horror and will never ever talk to you again. Imagine asking-on every single date or meeting-when will I tell him? How? What will happen?

The Colonists is a novel sharply focused on three women with social stigmas. Their journeys try to come to terms with being a cancer survivor, being HIV positive and being overweight. But wait. This story is not the typical focus on acceptance and finding oneself through adversity. It's not even focused on the characters' illnesses and conditions. Here, readers are asked to look through a different lens: thirty-something, stable adults navigating the dating world where, like it or not, stigmas do make a difference. But just how much of a difference? Which ones can be overcome, and which ones cannot? And how do they affect their very identities and life choices?

In critiques, every single reader has cried with the three characters and felt a deep connection with this novel. Many have said, "This is an important story; reminiscent of A Fine Balance-it's sad and hopeful at the same time... it must be told." Men and women alike have related to these three women's stories; after all, everyone has something that others know nothing about. Many can keep such secrets hidden. But these women can't. At least, not for long.

The women's journeys take readers deep into a world of banishment; a cruel world where only the strongest survive modern day plagues, only to be relegated to becoming a Colonist-forced to enter a modern leper-type dating colony they cannot escape. Different from memoirs and how-to cope/self-help books dealing with these social issues, The Colonists is a novel, highly literary and very reflective, weaving the times in three women's lives when the best and the worst of life events occur. When everything else in life is going well, how and why do these social stigmas still hold us back?...

... Can another-the one we want to love-ever truly accept us?