Nor The Moon By Night by Joy Packer

I saw this on a Goodreads friend's  to-read list and was intrigued. They had it on open library so I downloaded it "just for a taste", got engrossed and read it all in two days. (despite reading two other books~ welcome to my world! :)

In a nutshell, Alice is a nurse and WW2 is over. After caring for her terminally ill mother for four years she is free and looking for a change. Andrew, her game warden penpal invites her to South Africa to pursue their relationship and she immediately sets off. Not everything goes to plan and Andrew is unable to pick Alice up when she arrives. Instead, Andrew 's brother, Rusty takes her under his wing.. .

Sounds like a pretty straightforward romance, right? Wrong! It's much more....African.

There are poachers, game keepers on the "wrong side " supplying the locals with guns, rogue elephants, 'pet ' lions, mambas, and a mystery surrounding a native game keeper who has been found with his tongue cut out and blinded...

Also there is a mystery surrounding Alice herself and the 'convenient' demise of her ill mother...

There's lots to love here. I thought it was a really well rounded book with the focus evenly distributed between adventure, romance and mystery. The writing is solid and engrossing and the characters felt real. This is the first Joy Packer book I've read but I really want to check out her others after reading this one!

CONTENT:

SEX: None
PROFANITY: Mild. D, B, H
VIOLENCE: Animal attacks and poacher pursuit. Nothing too graphic
PARANORMAL ELEMENTS: village chiefs and witch doctors. "paper lion" spells.

MY RATING: PG