Now available in Trade Paperback, THE FEVER TREE by Jennifer McVeigh (Berkley Trade Paperback Reprint; 978-0-425-26491-1; February 4, 2014; $16)! When it was first released in hardcover last year, Oprah.com raved, “Debut author Jennifer McVeigh has created a fully realized sensory tour of 19th-century South Africa: You feel the grit of each dust storm, taste the mealie Frances chokes down, hear the cicadas scraping through the heat-parched air along with Frances’ plaintive piano playing.” McVeigh’s charmed story of loss and love has also been featured in Good Housekeeping, Women’s World, USA Today, Washington Post, The Guardian, Daily Mail, and more.
With a perceptive and penetrating narrative, McVeigh unspools the story of Frances Irvine, a young Englishwoman forced by hopeless circumstance to immigrate to the Cape in pursuit of a reluctant marriage. There she discovers a strange new world where greed and colonial exploitation are bringing vast wealth to some and dire misery to countless others. As she struggles to find her place in this inhospitable land, Frances tethers her fate to two very different men: one serious and idealistic, the other charming and ambitious. When a smallpox epidemic threatens the financial dynasty of the most powerful Englishman in South Africa, Frances will be cast into a vortex of dangerous consequences—and find an unexpected, purposeful path.
A sweeping novel of romance and South African history that has been compared to Gone with the Wind, The Thorn Birds, and Out of Africa, THE FEVER TREE is an epic, heart wrenching tale not to be missed.
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About the Author:
Jennifer McVeigh, who has herself traveled to remote areas of Southern and East Africa, also drew on firsthand accounts of life in colonial South Africa, as well as nineteenth century guidebooks and women’s magazines, in order to infuse Frances Irvine’s experiences with arresting verisimilitude. You can find her on the web at www.jennifermcveigh.com.
The Fever Tree is available now from Putnam Adult. You can buy it here or here in e-format.
I am very intrigued by the idea of a historical novel set in South Africa. I can’t say it’s run of the mill setting and I think I like that aspect, but it also makes me wonder will I like it?
Would be interesting
I honestly don’t know–the protagonist is obviously white and privileged by virtue of her race, I wonder how (and whether) that is addressed at all in the novel.
I wondered about that as well. I might have to research it some more before I decide to read.
I enjoy reading historical fiction and this sounds like a very interesting book.
I always enjoy historical novels, no matter where they take place; although reading and learning about far away lands is always more interesting! I’m only superficially aware of the constant struggles South Africa has faced, so it would be quite interesting to read a book with depth.