A Legacy of Adventure
I was born into a family of adventurers.
My great-grandfather owned a gold mine in Botswana; my grandfather mapped the tsetse fly belt in the Okavango before being appointed to the committee that banished Botswana's future President, Seretse Khama, for marrying white woman Ruth Williams; my uncle was trampled to death by an elephant in Tanzania while hunting alone; and my father investigated 'diretlo' (medicine murder) and illegal diamond trading in 1960s Lesotho.
So, being a romantic suspense author, of course the time would finally come to leave the Napoleonic wars, Regency ballrooms, and Victorian-era Mayfair brothels behind so I could do literary justice to the adventure written into my DNA.
From Regency to the Real Africa
I now write murder mysteries and love triangles set in the heart of Africa, based on a lifetime of hearing family stories—stories which sent me on a journey of discovery from my new home in South Australia back to Botswana, where I found myself in the middle of my own love story. One that had me living in Botswana and Namibia with the handsome Norwegian bush pilot I met when I was a safari hostess managing luxury lodges in the Okavango.
Coming Home Through Fiction
In one month, Diamond Mountain will transport readers to the remote highlands of Lesotho, where my father's real investigations into medicine murder and diamond smuggling provide the authentic backbone for Philippa Tremain's dangerous journey. It's a story only I could tell—because I lived it, breathed it, and carry it in my very bones.