Evelyn walked towards the cluster of flame lilies, each one a cup of flickering scarlet edged with trickling gold, growing up from the deep, rich, red African soil. She bent down gently stretched her arms around them, just able to touch her fingers together, and breathed in deeply. The smell of green … only here on this land.'The Last Stop Safari Shop is a beautiful ode to Africa. It is set in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Tanzania in the late 1980's and 1990's.It charts the lives of Marius, an interior designer from Cape Town who hesitantly accepts a job decorating safari lodges in Tanzania. Astrid, a young Swiss woman who is disappointed when she arrives in Tanzania as all she sees on her journey from the airport are donkeys, dogs and vervet monkeys. No lion or elephant - not what she was anticipating at all. Evelyn, a Rhodesian war widow, returns to Zimbabwe after exiling herself in Somerset, England to help her brother-in-law and his wife with their rhino conservation.By digging deep and finding their inner resources, paths cross, and unlikely friendships are formed. Under the transformative power of the 'Africa-ness' of Africa, all three individuals begin to heal and embrace their lives.
