Words That Bind

Words That Bind is a 2014 romance novel by Ash Krafton (also known, sometimes, as A.J. Krafton). The story follows Tamarinda “Tam” Kerish, a clinical social worker whose new client turns out to be a centuries-old Djinn/fire elemental who goes by the name Mr. Burns. Burns comes to Tam under the guise of needing help, but he has ulterior motives. Words That Bind won first place in the HeRA RWA “Show Me the Spark” competition in 2013. Under the name A.J. Krafton, Krafton also writes young/new adult fiction; she is part of a collective of writers in that genre called the Infinite Ink Authors. Krafton has also written short prose and poetry, for which she was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is a member of several writing circles, including the Pennwriters, Romance Writers of America, and Pikes Peak Writers, and is a staff blogger for the Query Tracker Blog. She works as a retail pharmacist for her day job.

Tam Kerish is a social worker who lives and works in Philadelphia. She has a particular penchant for difficult clients because her own relatively low affect and lack of a strong emotional inner life, allows her to view her patients with what is given to be the clarity of logic. This helps her view her patients' problems with the objectivity of which not only they, but even other therapists are not capable. She considers her clients to be rather like riddles that she enjoys solving.

Tam is of this mindset when she is approached by a new client, a man named Burns. Tam has the strange feeling she knows him from somewhere, but she cannot place where: "Tam searched his face, scanning it against her memories, coming up blank. Where had she seen him before?" Over the course of her sessions with Burns, Tam experiences new feelings and physical sensations, ones she has observed before in clients, but not herself. She is at a loss to explain why, but she knows that there is something peculiar about Burns. "Her dark eyes met his, a split-second connection that felt like the bite of an electric current.”

The truth is wholly unexpected. Burns is, he claims, an immortal Djinn, or fire elemental (thus the exceeding subtlety of his chosen name when in human form). Eventually, he begins to share his – long – history. At first, Tam struggles to accept his story, thinking that he must suffer from mental illness, but over time, she comes to believe him. What she does not know is that Burns is aware that she possesses a magical artifact that he is desperate to get his hands on. In the past, he was summoned by the legendary King Solomon and bound by him to a magical ring. That ring has ended up, in a sense, in Tam's care.

To Burns’s surprise, Tam is the first woman he has met not to fall immediately to his charms. Despite her awakened feelings, she tries valiantly to keep her composure; her steeliness and focus impress him. When she is unable to control her feelings anymore, she conscientiously turns him away as a client. Nevertheless, that does not end their affair; the attraction between Tam and Burns continues. It seems, in fact, increasingly impossible to stop it. Burns and Tam have known each other before, in past lives; Tam is to play a special role in uniting their two distinct worlds.

A standard example of a light romance novel, like many, Words That Bind builds to a climactic sex scene (which is not overly explicit). However, it is unusual in its use of an element of apocryphal Biblical mythology – the story of King Solomon's adventures in sorcery. King Solomon is said to have accomplished his great deeds not with the help of God's blessings – or, at least, not by these alone – but by summoning demons or other supernatural entities to aid him in his empire building. Krafton draws upon this occult tradition as well as aspects of Middle Eastern mythology to explain Burns's powers, weaknesses, and origins.