A gripping novel of love and slavery of both heart and body. Based in Victorian England and Eastern Africa, it explores the dangers of colonization, family ties, and the Dark Continent. Zanzibar. The island of dreams. The island of nightmares. In Victorian England, it is considered both: a tropical haven for every dispossessed visionary, every soldier of fortune from Timbuktu to London—until recently—the slave capital of the world. Now Charlotte Earnshaw, the youngest daughter of the earl of Highgate, will discover both the joys and terrors of Zanzibar, and will learn the bitter lesson of slavery—from slavery of the body to slavery of the heart. Yet her salvation lies with the dark stranger who holds her captive and threatens the very destruction of Highgate Manor. On a bitter winter day in 1887, Charlotte Earnshaw's life will change forever—for she will meet the dark avenging stranger who will force her father's return to Africa: Jasim bin Rashid, the prince of Zanzibar. In her quest to find her long-lost true love Geoffrey, Charlotte falls prey to Mal d'Afrique, the dark secret of Eastern Africa and all its perils. Even as she returns to her beloved Cornwall, danger awaits in the sinister form of her predatory brother-in-law Derek Gallwey, and she must decide ultimately where her heart lies.
