Andrew JH Sharp

From my Blog : Books BY Choice: http://wingbackchoices.blogspot.com/2013/11/fortunate-by-andrew-jh-sharp.html

A true story embedded in fiction. From this angle the reader can expect that drama will be limited and characters cotton-wrapped. In a sense it is true.

Yet, Beth Jenkins, a locum doctor, young and somewhat lost in a one-year old marriage to the love of her life - who lost his mind, has enough on her plate, and enough inexperience to make a royal mess of things. Especially when she gets entangled with her patients such as Mr. de Villier. He needs a favor, and Beth has enough challenges, with her demanding mother-in-law, a new mysterious friend, Fortunate, and circumstances pressuring her, to evacuate her poshy life in England for the more intimidating African bush.

Zimbabwe has just been liberated. What promised to be heaven soon proved to be hell-on-steroids for the inhabitants and a little bit better for tourists with pockets full of spending money. For illegal tourists it gets even more tougher and thrilling! The adventures are more intense, the ambiance volatile. That is where Beth's break from her own reality leads her to. She would make enough mistakes to last her a lifetime, but would gain enough new insight into a world her husband, as an archaeologist, discovered and loved. Her voyage will ultimately lead her home - a place she was unable to find before. Home. It is not what she thought it was.

It is a great story. A relaxing, informative, adventure. A soft-landing for anyone interested in reading more about the African lifestyle behind the glitz and glamour of an African Safari, but with the same intensity and feeling of being-there. Really being there. Nothing in the book is outrageously extravagant or overly exaggerated. On the contrary! ...

This is a really enjoyable book. It is multidimensional - covering the life of a young woman finding her path in life, meeting warm-hearted, sincere Africans, introducing tragicomedian politicians acting out their mafia-style looting of a continent's resources, and addressing loves lost and found. These elements serve a smorgasbord of different interests, which makes it an informative, great read.

It is the second book of Andrew J. H. Sharp that I read. I am looking forward to the third, for sure.… (plus d'informations)

excerpt from http://myhomeofbooks.blogspot.com

I assumed this was a chick-lit story about a young woman running away from home to Africa to find herself. Well...yes and no. This is a story about a 28 year old doctor and wife from England running away to Zimbabwe, but it is definitely not chick-lit or women's contemporary fiction. The book reads more like literary fiction, rolled up with historical fiction. The author, who lives in England but hails from East Africa, has blended a contemporary storyline concerning Dr. Beth Jenkins and her husband Matt, an archeologist specializing in ancient rock art, with the lush history of Rhodesia (now called Zimbabwe).

summary:
Beth and Matt are only married a very short time when he suffers a brain aneurysm, and their life together is challenged by his severe brain damage, which makes him a shell of a man. When Beth and her friends are together at their weekly "girl chat", she admits she wishes she can leave everything in her life behind and become a new person. Little did her friends know that she is being honest about it. An opportunity presents itself in the form of two people with a troublesome past: Zimbabwe natives-- one named Fortunate, who is working as a caregiver in the nursing home Dr. Beth visits-- and Mr. De Villier, a dying patient who begs Beth to hand-deliver the deed to his huge farm back in the old country to his estranged son. It is here that the story takes off, but you have to suspend belief about some of the actions Beth takes and some of the dialogue within, as Mr. Sharp writes with a dry wit that takes the edge off of a serious history lesson.

my thoughts:
I surprised myself by enjoying this story, even though I am way out of my comfort zone here. I was interested in learning about the Independence in this African country, and the shift of power that resulted. I was curious about whether Beth would go back to her husband, who was being cared for by his critical mother, or whether she would stay in the country her husband loved when he was mentally efficient. I even wanted to know the outcome of Fortunate, a man who was able to be cheerful in the face of much anguish and poverty.


… (plus d'informations)