Poor old Zawanda is in a mess, its economy in meltdown, its people unable to give up their age-old tribal enmities. The news that Britain is to cut off the country?s foreign aid looks like the last straw, until Frederick Zawutu, the intelligent, Cambridge and Sandhurst-educated new president, hits on a daring scheme ? to embark on a game of bluff designed to make the West believe that this penniless Central African nation has somehow acquired a nuclear bomb. Everything goes to plan ? until the English arms dealer Zawutu has set up to unwittingly play the part of the ?supplier? proves to be a little too good at his job?Hawthorn?s Hill is a light-hearted, cleverly-constructed novel about modern Africa, the follies of diplomacy, tribal conflict and the foibles of race and sex.ÿ
"The best wine book I read this year was not about wine. It was about cider"--Eric Asimov, New York Times, on Uncultivated Today, food is being reconsidered. It’s a front-and-center topic in everything from politics to art, from science to economics. We know now that leaving food to government and industry specialists was one of the twentieth century’s greatest mistakes. The question is where do we go from here. Author Andy Brennan describes uncultivation as a process: It involves exploring the wild; recognizing that much of nature is omitted from our conventional ways of seeing and doing things (our cultivations); and realizing the advantages to embracing what we’ve somehow forgotten or ignored. For most of us this process can be difficult, like swimming against the strong current of our modern culture. The hero of this book is the wild apple. Uncultivated follows Brennan’s twenty-four-year history with naturalized trees and shows how they have guided him toward successes in agriculture, in the art of cider making, and in creating a small-farm business. The book contains useful information relevant to those particular fields, but is designed to connect the wild to a far greater audience, skillfully blending cultural criticism with a food activist’s agenda. Apples rank among the most manipulated crops in the world, because not only do farmers want perfect fruit, they also assume the health of the tree depends on human intervention. Yet wild trees live all around us, and left to their own devices, they achieve different forms of success that modernity fails to apprehend. Andy Brennan learned of the health and taste advantages of such trees, and by emulating nature in his orchard (and in his cider) he has also enjoyed environmental and financial benefits. None of this would be possible by following today’s prevailing winds of apple cultivation. In all fields, our cultural perspective is limited by a parallel proclivity. It’s not just agriculture: we all must fight tendencies toward specialization, efficiency, linear thought, and predetermined growth. We have cultivated those tendencies at the exclusion of nature’s full range. If Uncultivated is about faith in nature, and the power it has to deliver us from our own mistakes, then wild apple trees have already shown us the way.
Complicate Me is book one of Reid and Sienna’s duet and book one in the Hawthorn Hills Duet Series. A two-part, angst-filled, slow-burn, New Adult romance. Complicate Me must be read before Complete Me in order to enjoy the full story. Life at its simplest is still complicated. Reid Bowen is her brother’s best friend and the biggest womanizer on campus. She has no business wanting him. Sienna Parker is forbidden and the sweetest fruit he can never taste. But if he can’t have her, no one can. Forced together by a road trip home, it will not only test their patience, but also their resolve to stay away from each other. Bound by their past, it’s the complicated that changes their lives. The Hawthorn Hills Duet Series follows eight couples. Each two-book duet must be read in order to enjoy the couple’s full story, but the series can be read in any order. You’ll find angst-filled, slow-burn, epic love stories along with topical storylines and some amazingly real and raw characters.
The Hawthorn Hills Duet Series follows four couples. Each two-book duet must be read in order to enjoy the couple’s full story and we highly recommend reading the whole series in order as the stories and characters are all interconnected. Within this eight book boxed set, you’ll find angst-filled, slow-burn, epic love stories, along with some topical storylines, some amazingly real and raw characters and of course, plenty of steam and swoon!
