In each of my 'Wings over Africa' books, I've focused on a particular event that was important in either aviation - ie, the Australian Pilot's Dispute in 'Whispers in the Kalahari' - or some ecological or environmental event.
My most recent release, Wings over the Okavango is set during the terrible drought of 1996.
In fact, in 1996, the Okavango Delta was suffering through the worst drought in living memory. The rivers were drying up, and a controversial proposal by Namibia to build a water pipeline had more than just the safari town of Maun on edge.
I remember the angst vividly because I returned to Maun that year to do a water survey.
Several years previously, I had lived and worked in Maun, managing luxury safari lodges. Now I was back, sitting in the back of a Cessna 404, operating the data acquisition computer equipment for an aerial survey flown by my Canadian company, Fugro.
Flying over that parched, breathtaking landscape gave me a front-row seat to the environmental drama that eventually became the backdrop for "Wings over the Okavango".
Aekavango - one of the many charter companies operating out of Maun in the 1990s.
It's funny that it's taken so many decades for the story to take shape. I have to be honest and say that, at the time, I was just excited to be back in town and to see my old friends and the beautiful Okavango Delta again. It was so fabulous to see it from the air, flying at 250 feet above ground and seeing little bat-eared foxes standing on a termite mound, checking us out. I hadn't had such a great aerial view since I used to fly with my husband over the Delta in his microlight.
But, in 1996, there really was a lot of concern about this proposal to put in a pipeline to draw water from the Okavango to help with the dire drought conditions in Windhoek, the capital of Namibia, which looked like it was about to run out of water.
A typical dirt runway near one of the lodges in the Okavango in 1990.
Anyway, to cut a long story short (which is something I rarely do ;) ), after I'd finished writing Whispers in the Kalahari, which is based so much on my own personal story of a journalist leaving her comfortable job in Australia to live in Botswana, my book had ended with a couple of teenage runaway girls whose own stories were begging to be told.
And that's when I had the idea of setting my next story six years later - when Saskia and Angie are 22. In fact, I was here, in Melbourne, pondering where the sequel would go, when I remembered that I'd been in Maun for this water survey, and that there surely this drought would have given rise to some some big conflict angle.
So I pulled out my old diaries, began my research into who sought to profit from the pipeline ... and the story began to form itself.
Watch out for the crocs! Enjoying a swim in the Boro River!
Wings over the Okavango is a story of corporate sabotage, dangerous secrets, and the desperate fight to save one of the world's most spectacular natural wonders. It is, also, a romance.
So, if you love breathtaking African landscapes, gripping suspense, and a swoon-worthy bush pilot romance -- and if you like family stories where runaway teenage girls become brave young women, falling in love with handsome bush pilots they don't know if they should trust, in a frontier bush town -- check out the book!
📖 WINGS OVER THE OKAVANGO Available now at all retailers:
https://books2read.com/u/b6DR1x
And direct at:
https://beverleysbooks.com/collections/wings-over-africa-collection-1
✨ Drawn from my own real-life experiences managing safari lodges in Botswana and flying aerial surveys across the globe! ✨
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