Rich and Strange

Rich and Strange is an often optimistic novel about twelve people of very different ages, experience and personalities, who leave the English winter to spend six weeks travelling all the way to Manaus on the Amazon and back on a cruise ship. How will they cope with their ambitions, their prejudices, their needs for comfort, for sex, and for adventure?


As well as discovering exotic places, they have to deal with getting to know themselves and each other, and finally with the mind-boggling idea that they might all live together back in London.


An underlying theme is whether people, living in such proximity, seeing new parts of the world and of themselves, can change. Will they cling to their individualism, or recognise the sense of belonging that grows unevenly through the group as the weeks go by? Finally they are challenged by a near-death experience as the ship nears England on the way back.