New Book Alert: Warrior Won by Meryl Davids Landau; An Enlightening Novel About Overcoming Stress With Yoga

New Book Alert: Warrior Won by Meryl Davids Landau; An Enlightening Novel About Overcoming Stress With Yoga




By Julie Sara Porter

PopSugar Reading Challenge: A book with a pun in the title (Warrior I)



Spoilers: In Meryl Davids Landau's previous novel, Downward Dog Upward Fog, Lorna Crawford discovered the key to dealing with the stress of an unfulfilled job and an emotionally abusive mother through Yoga. In the follow up, Warrior Won, Lorna uses Yoga to deal with a mostly positive but no less hectic life.


Lorna's life is miles above where she was before. She has a good job promoting an app which specializes in health screening for early signs of melanoma. She is happily married to Don, who is just as dedicated to Yoga as she is. She is the mother of Lilah, an energetic toddler, and is expecting another whom she and Don have nicknamed Deuxie. She has a close circle of female friends who encourage her Spiritual practice while implementing their own. As for her mother, well, she's working on that.


Lorna receives help from her Yoga sessions which help her feel more centered as she deals with an albeit satisfying but still complicated life. Negative stress returns to Lorna's life when she faints one day. Concerned what that could mean for Deuxie or herself, Lorna goes in for tests. She learns some distressing news that causes her to despair for the future of her unborn child and challenges her need to be centered in her life.

Warrior Won is essentially a manual on how to practice Yoga and implement meditation which admittedly has an interesting protagonist to guide the Reader through the process.

A very helpful facet to Lorna's character is that she demonstrates that centering is an ongoing process. Sure, she has coping mechanisms with her practises, friends, and family. But sometimes those mechanisms can only work so well when it comes to unexpected bad news or ongoing problems that leave long lasting scars.


Lorna's still-fractured relationship with her mother remains a bone of contention in her life. When she and her mother encounter each other, Lorna has to bite her lip to keep from answering back. However, she still feels like the little girl who had to endure the constant criticism and favoritism shown towards her sister.

In one passage, Lorna tries a meditative exercise in which she described her mother using positive affirmations in alphabetical order. She stops at F realizing that she can't think of anything else. Her mother's emotional abuse is still a hard thing for Lorna to recover.


Lorna also relies on Yoga and meditation in dealing with the unexpected particularly Deuxie's condition. It is truly heart tugging when Lorna and Don let the full impact of Deuxie's illness and impending short life sink in. They struggle with their practice, but realize that they can enjoy the time that they will have with their future son.

The book is filled with advice on how one can start their own Yoga practises. Landau (and Lorna) describe step by step the various poses such as Eagle (standing on one foot, arms crossed) and the Warrior (standing up, legs spread out, and arms extended). Not only the poses are described clearly but so are the benefits one gets from doing them such as a clear head, a calm demeanor, and a strength to handle the situations in life.


Other facets appear in Warrior Won. Lorna, Don, and Lilah have family Yoga sessions and meditations in which they set intentions and goals. Lorna's friends give her a Blessingway, a shower that focuses on the mother as well as the baby. Lorna and Don go to a retreat that combines Eastern and Western spiritual practises so well that Lorna reconciles with the Catholic faith that her mother once forced upon her. Books written by the likes of Eckhart Tolle, Esther and Jerry Hicks, Corrie ten Book, Teresa of Avila and others are recommended. These suggestions not only provide spiritual enlightenment for the characters but for the Readers as well.


Warrior Won is the perfect novel to help anyone begin their practice or who are well into their own and need a little encouragement to continue.