Description: Adolescents Elizabeth and Tururu-she's white, he's black-share an uneasy friendship in 1953's Zimbabwe when resentment to white rule erupts. To make matters worse, a clash between two witchdoctors unleash ancient fire spirits that will make the British overlords look like saints. Will their friendship survive?
Brief description: Rossandra White, a fourth generation South African, was raised in Nkana, Zambia where she had a baboon for a pet, learned to tell a log from a crocodile, and whistle through her tongue. Family holidays were either down to South Africa to visit family, day trips across the border to the Congo, or trips up to east Africa. Enamored with everything American, she emigrated to the States at twenty-three. Eleven years later she moved to the canyon in Laguna Beach, where she and her husband at the time made pottery and sold their wares at the Sawdust and various festivals in Southern California. She started writing to quiet the voices from the past back home in Africa. The result: two young adult novels, Monkey's Wedding, and Mine Dances, about family, race, and the dark magic of a society poised on the brink of change. The Kindle for Monkey's Wedding was published by Kindle Press on January 31, 2017. The unraveling of her marriage, along with a crisis back home in Africa resulted in her memoir, Loveyoubye: Holding Fast, Letting Go, and Then There's the Dog, published by SWP in 2014. She still lives in the canyon with her two Staffordshire Bull Terriers, Jake and Fergie, with whom she fights for space in her bed. When she's not writing, she's at the gym or hiking the hills behind her home in Laguna canyon.
Review Quotes: "Rossandra White has captured the sights, sounds, and feel of Zimbabwe in the fifties . . .The dialogue is idiosyncratic and authentic, particularly the dialogue dynamics between Elizabeth and Tururu. In short, this is a wonderful, unique novel." Dave King, author of The Ha-Ha "Monkey's Wedding is a wonderful (in every sense of the word) story, beautifully told. The struggle, after all, is never really between races, cultures or religions; it is always between the bright and dark sides of the force . . . I loved the magic, which brought a powerful and symbolic resonance to the tale" Robin Chambers, author of Myrrdin's Heir "Monkey's Wedding is an accomplished work: ". . . its story suspenseful, its setting extremely vivid and fascinating and its message deeply meaningful." Editor Helga Shier