Thank you Sourcebooks Landmark #partner for the finished copy of Follow Me to Africa in exchange for my honest review.
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark
Published: February 25, 2025
Summary:
Historical fiction inspired by the story of groundbreaking paleoanthropologist Mary Leakey, FOLLOW ME TO AFRICA is a sweeping, dual-timeline story of intergenerational friendship, a meditation on the beauty of the natural world, and a celebration of the women who pave the way for those to come.
It’s 1983 and seventeen-year-old Grace Clark has just lost her mother when she begrudgingly accompanies her estranged father to an archeological dig at Olduvai Gorge on the Serengeti plains of Tanzania. Here, seventy-year-old Mary Leakey enlists Grace to sort and pack her fifty years of work and memories.
Their interaction reminds Mary how she pursued her ambitions of becoming an archeologist in the 1930s by sneaking into lectures and working on excavations. When well-known paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey commissions her to illustrate a book, she’s not at all expecting to fall in love with the older married man. Mary then follows Louis to East Africa, where she falls in love for a second time, this time with the Olduvai Gorge, where her work defines her as a great scientist and allows her to step out of Louis’s shadow.
In time, Mary and Grace learn they are more alike than they thought, which eventually leads them to the secret that connects them. They also discover a mutual deep love for animals, and when Lisa, an injured cheetah, appears at camp, Mary and Grace work together to save her. On the morning Grace is due to leave, the girl—and the cheetah—are nowhere to be found, and it becomes a race against time to rescue Grace before the African bush claims her.
From the acclaimed author of The Invincible Miss Cust and The Woman at Wheel comes an adventurous, dual timeline tale that explores the consequences of our choices, wisdom that comes with retrospection, and relationships that make us who we are, based on the extraordinary real life of Mary Leakey.
My thoughts:
This is the first book I’ve read by Penny Haw, though it certainly will not be my last. Luckily for me, I already have one of her other books sitting on my shelf…and you better believe I’ll be moving it up on my tbr!
It’s no surprise that I love historical fiction, but finding books that aren’t set during the wars can sometimes be a little tricky. This book grabbed my attention because I haven’t read too many books set in Africa, nor have I read any books about paleoanthropologists, male or female & I was immediately intrigued.
I loved how this book took a real person & paired it with a fictional character…I love how historical fiction authors are able to do that so seamlessly & Penny Haw does it in such a clever way. The book centers on the question: What would you tell your younger self. It is with this question in mind that we watch the relationship between Mary and Grace unfold.
It is quite evident the amount of research that went into the writing of this book, and when you read the author’s note – a must-read for sure! – you see why the author made the decisions about how she wrote the book and just how accomplished Mary Leakey was! The writing itself is just gorgeous, with such a strong sense of place. I’ve never been to Africa, and yet because of the vivid writing, I felt as if I was there.
I very much enjoyed this book and recommend it to all historical fiction lovers!
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