When Mary Llewellyn’s husband is killed in a battle between Welsh and English miners in poverty-stricken Wales, she resolves to forge a new life in the South African sun with her children.
However, after overcoming a dangerous journey beset by snakes, crocodiles and hostile warriors, all is not as they had hoped in the village of Pilgrims Rest. Change is on the move in 1870s South Africa and Mary, Huw, Ianto, William and baby Tom are right in the middle of it.
Battle breaks out first between the Zulus and the English, then the English and the Boers. And as Ianto’s hatred of the people who killed his father causes him to take up arms for the Boers, brother is pitted in battle against brother.
“Since they had sailed from Dartmouth she could not look at the sea and the grey tricks it played. But now, as they rounded the Cape of Good Hope, she felt settled for the first time. She saw the sky and sea were the same blue, joining each other on a cloudless horizon and she gripped the handrail tight with both hands and held her face up to the large evening sun to smell the spray better. It was no hazard now and it did not threaten but tasted sweet on her lips, sweet, when for so many painful weeks it had tasted only of salt and bitter bile. She filled her chest with air and was surprised. They said there was no land for at least a hundred miles and yet the air was heavy with the perfume of flowers.”
“This is one of those absorbing stories where you feel you are part of that world. You get to know the characters and you wonder how they’ll manage but at the same time want the best for them. Mr Nicholson has used his extensive knowledge plus research extremely well. I learned a lot as the story progressed without having an information dump dropped on me as so many authors do. At the same time his use of language impressed me. I could hear the Welsh lilt, I could see the veldt in my mind’s eye because of the descriptive language. Only one hiccup and that was in the kindle presentation – it wasn’t obvious when a scene switched or a new focus occurred because the spacing of paragraphs did not differ when this happened so you carried on reading and then realised with a jolt that the focus had shifted. I’m not sure if this happened in the printed version but suspect that the spacing would be far more obvious there. It was mildly irritating but I got used to it and it did not detract from the story itself which I thoroughly enjoyed..” 5★ Amazon review
“Great read and mostly historically correct, I live in Pretoria, S.A. and have visited Pilgrims Rest many times. You always get that eerie sense when visiting the cemetery. Well written..” 5★ Amazon review