Ivory Moon

Sally Henderson's long love affair with Africa and its elephants was brought to life in the bestselling Silent Footsteps. Now she returns with Ivory Moon, a memoir set in Namibia - in one of the most hostile landscapes on the planet.

When Sally and her husband, Jer, volunteer to run a remote safari camp in the parched Namib Desert, where existence depends on the life-giving fog from the Skeleton Coast, she has no idea if it is heaven or hell that awaits her. If her longing for a wilderness experience where elephants roam the dunes is tried by extremes of climate, sandstorms and dangerous encounters with wild animals, Sally does not expect it will be camp politics that will take her to the edge.

But that's exactly the case. A woman running a camp in a man's world, Sally is tested by the staff, who come from many different tribes, and challenged by the intractable men's men who make Africa their hunting ground. The quest for equilibrium is intensified by the haunting presence of intangible things and the echoes of an ancient mystery.

Beautifully told, Sally's vivid depiction of the natural world and the wildlife that rules Africa's desert are unparalleled. Ivory Moon takes us into the heart of a strange desert world where nothing is as it seems.