Sheena Summerfield

Where the Wild Lilies Grow Sheena Summerfield

This riveting, romantic period piece, an epic adventure, "a sweep of interesting history", spans three generations beginning at the time of The British Industrial Revolution, The Napoleonic Wars and The Dutch East India Company in 1819. It is a good new read that will stir up emotions and bring you to tears. An English widower and his courageous, beautiful daughter imbibe Lord Somerset's idea to develop a new life in a strange New World, to settle in a far off undeveloped land of darkest Southern Africa. Two young Danish men set off to explore the world. Anchored in a Bay, tied to a shaky tree trunk as a lanyard, they are smitten with the promise of wild, exciting, fecund, Africa. So much so, that when they encounter two young Afrikaners wanting to trade land for their boat, a bargain is struck. Xosa, whose father castrated him as a child to conjure youthfulness, feels he is an outcast amongst his people and thus open to joining the immigrants. He is an extraordinary, fascinating man, a specialist guide, confidant, and friend. Lion, born from this mix of differing peoples and named from the wilds from whence he came with natural inborn culture beyond the dictates of civilization. He is like the Lion cub he raises with one foot in each world. Lust, love, romance and undying devotion: Farming, ranching, diamonds and business; Politics, war, racial tensions, decimation and perseverance; This is an epic adventure which will make you laugh and make you cry, which grasps men's instinctual enjoyment of an existence in a time of hair raising fear and freedom of living. A time when there was a need to be proactive, to create and survive.