South Africa

Cosy crime. Meet Tannie Maria: the lovable writer of recipes in her local paper, the Klein Karoo Gazette. One Sunday morning, as Maria stirs apricot jam, she hears her editor Harriet on the stoep. What Maria doesn't realise is that Harriet is about to deliver a whole basketful of challenges and the first ingredient in two new recipes - recipes for love and murder.  Join Tannie Maria in her first investigation - a delicious blend of intrigue, milk tart, and friendship.

Historical fiction. When Englishwoman Frances McDonald sets up home in a remote South African hamlet in the shadow of the Hex River Mountains, she is regarded with suspicion by the community. Confined by a marriage of convenience, she seeks an outlet by learning the local language, teaching art, and exhibiting her paintings of the stunning veld landscape. Soon the spectre of war threatens to divide not only the country but the town itself and scupper Frances’s hard-won acceptance. While her husband leaves to fight for the Allies, Frances chances to meet a former love. The bright joy of that unexpected reunion is clouded by a day that will change her life. Out of the smoke and ash of a shocking fire, she is propelled on a journey that will take her from the arid veld to the bright lights of London and beyond.

Memoir. Francoise never expected to find herself responsible for a herd of elephants with a troubled past. A chic Parisienne, her life changed forever when she fell in love with South African conservationist Lawrence Anthony. Together they founded a game reserve but after Lawrence's death, Francoise faced the daunting responsibility of running Thula Thula without him. Poachers attacked their rhinos, their security team wouldn't take orders from a woman and the authorities were threatening to cull their beloved elephant family. On top of that, the herd's feisty new matriarch Frankie didn't like her. In this heart-warming and moving book, Francoise describes how she fought to protect the herd and to make her dream of building a wildlife rescue centre a reality. She found herself caring for a lost baby elephant who turned up at her house, and offering refuge to traumatized orphaned rhinos, and a hippo called Charlie who was scared of water. As she learned to trust herself, she discovered she'd had Frankie wrong all along . .