The Shell by Tony Riches

Mapping the BookAbout the BookAbout Tony Riches

Literary World Trip: Tony Riches

Book/Scene Location: Mombasa, Kenya

What happens there? The dream holiday turns into a nightmare for a young couple. Brutally attacked and kidnapped, she has to battle for survival – he has to find and rescue her – before it is too late.

Excerpt

Palm trees line an idyllic beach of white coral sand. An Arabian dhow sails on the clear blue waters of the Indian Ocean. Two lovers are ruthlessly torn apart, perhaps forever. Lucy is bound and helpless, taken far from the safety of the world she knows. Unconscious and bleeding, nothing has prepared Steve for what he needs to do.

Lucy’s journey is mental as well as physical as she discovers how easily the protective shell of her old world has been stripped away. Everything she took for granted is gone and she has to fight to survive, one day at a time. Whatever happens, she knows her life will never be the same again.

Based on actual events and current news reports, this fast-paced action and adventure novel explores the reality of the tensions between the old tribal ways and life in the new, rapidly developing country of Kenya.

The Shell - Tony Riches

Mombasa beach: An African adventure turns into a nightmare for a young couple. Brutally attacked and kidnapped, she has to battle for survival in one of the remotest and most dangerous areas of north east Kenya. He has to find and rescue her – before it is too late.

Palm trees line an idyllic beach of white coral sand. An Arabian dhow sails on the clear blue waters of the Indian Ocean. Two lovers are ruthlessly torn apart, perhaps forever. Lucy is bound and helpless, taken far from the safety of the world she knows. Unconscious and bleeding, nothing has prepared Steve for what he needs to do.

The inability of the authorities to help means Steve has to find the strength and courage to risk his own life in the desperate search for Lucy and fight back against the kidnappers. His journey takes him deep into the African wilderness, where death and danger wait for the unwary.

Lucy’s journey is mental as well as physical as she discovers how easily the protective shell of her old world has been stripped away. Everything she took for granted is gone and she has to fight to survive, one day at a time. Whatever happens, she knows her life will never be the same again.

Based on actual events and current news reports, this fast-paced action and adventure novel explores the reality of the tensions between the old tribal ways and life in the new, rapidly developing country of Kenya.

Amazon Goodreads

Tony Riches was born in Pembrokeshire, West Wales, and spent part of his childhood in Kenya. He gained a BA degree in Psychology and an MBA from Cardiff University and after writing several successful non-fiction books, Tony decided to turn to novel writing and wrote ‘Queen Sacrifice’, set in 10th century Wales, followed by ‘The Shell’, a thriller set in present day Kenya. His real interest is in the history of the fifteenth century, and now his focus is on writing historical fiction about the lives of key figures of the period.

His novels ‘Warwick ~ The Man Behind the Wars of the Roses’ and ‘The Secret Diary of Eleanor Cobham’ have both become Amazon best sellers. He is now working on The Tudor Trilogy, book one of which is about Owen Tudor, the Welsh servant who married Queen Catherine of Valois and founded the Tudor Dynasty.

Today Tony has returned to Pembrokeshire, an area full of inspiration for his writing, where he lives with his wife. In his spare time he enjoys sailing and sea kayaking.

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Unbowed: A Memoir by Wangari Maathai

Submitted by Claire McAlpine

Mapping the BookAbout the BookAbout Claire McAlpine

Literary World Trip: Claire McAlpine

Book/Scene Location: Ihithe village, Nyeri, Kenya

What happens there? This is the village Wangari Maathai was born and after leaving it and eventually pursuing higher education, she returns to her roots, literally, to plant trees with the women, she wants to make a change to the lives of villagers and finds it through establishing the Green Belt Movement, inspiring and showing women how to plant trees sustainably, to set up tree nursery’s and protect what rightfully belongs to the community.

This is where it all began, in 2006 she would win the Noble Peace Prize and her incredible achievements which come from such humble beginnings and have such practical implemenation, would be acknowledged by people the world over. She is the hummingbird.

Unbowed - Wangari Maathai

Hugely charismatic, humble, and possessed of preternatural luminosity of spirit, Wangari Maathai, the winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize and a single mother of three, recounts her extraordinary life as a political activist, feminist, and environmentalist in Kenya.

Born in a rural village in 1940, Wangari Maathai was already an iconoclast as a child, determined to get an education even though most girls were uneducated. We see her studying with Catholic missionaries, earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees in the United States, and becoming the first woman both to earn a PhD in East and Central Africa and to head a university department in Kenya. We witness her numerous run-ins with the brutal Moi government. She makes clear the political and personal reasons that compelled her, in 1977, to establish the Green Belt Movement, which spread from Kenya across Africa and which helps restore indigenous forests while assisting rural women by paying them to plant trees in their villages. We see how Maathai’s extraordinary courage and determination helped transform Kenya’s government into the democracy in which she now serves as assistant minister for the environment and as a member of Parliament. And we are with her as she accepts the Nobel Peace Prize, awarded in recognition of her “contribution to sustainable development, human rights, and peace.”

In Unbowed, Wangari Maathai offers an inspiriting message of hope and prosperity through self-sufficiency.

Amazon Goodreads

I blog at Word by Word and write reviews of books I am drawn to. For me, reading is a journey, a meeting place, something to enjoy in solitude and to share with friends.

I like the connections between books, how one often leads to another, that freedom to change direction and follow an inclination.

I like to read across borders and cultures, outside that which is familiar and known, I like to read literary fiction, fiction in translation (particularly French literature), biographies of inspiring people, creative nature writing.

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