Reja Jorat doesn’t have the luxury of romance. Having already disgraced her family by going against their wishes and pursuing a career in politics, she knows she must make up for it by finding a respectable husband to put the controversy to rest and do right by her family name. Gul Jurra Kharrim would do just that: an old family friend, he is loyal to Cardassia and honored in his field. You could not find a better exemplar of Cardassian virtues.
So why does she find her mind straying to her old childhood friend, Lem Prosca? She thought he had left her life when he ran off to do agriculture science on the border of Cardassian space, but now her posting has brought him back into her orbit, and she finds that he is an unconventional man, one who challenges her views without disrespecting her. She cannot deny the tension between them, and yet cannot deny the great service Kharrim does by pursuing her. She knows what a true daughter of Cardassia would do. But can she be that woman?
i cannot stop thinking about @spaceteenagers‘s series of drawings of trashy alien romance novels. truly, this has consumed my brain. i wanted to try my own hand at one, so tada
humans who read A True Daughter of Cardassia have been enraged by the “twist ending” which absolutely confuses cardassians because there isn’t one? everyone knew that jorat was going to end up with kharrim from the beginning. the real discussion is whether this is an example of the classic morality tale, in allowing jorat to be tested in her loyalty to the state but ultimately making the expected decision, or if this novel is cleverly crafted to explore the nature of desire and cultural expectations and also get past censors
