MY ZULU MYSELF

John Lockley ran his fingers through his hair and laughed,
a wonderful laugh full of the exultation of life,
and Darlengi laughed in kind;
and at that perfect moment, their souls met.

John Lockley Harrison saves Darlengi, the Zulu, from drowning. Across the startling cultural divide they feel as if they are true brothers: their mothers both died at their births, they were born on the same day.

Darlengi is drawn to Ellen ‘the Ice Princess’, John Lockley’s sister, but in her eyes he sees only rejection and hatred. A hatred which ultimately leads to a startling revelation and the shocking consequences that neither could have foreseen. While unbeknown to the Zulu, John Lockley has fallen in love with Darlengi’s sister: an impossible dream in South Africa in the 1870s and one with a calamitious outcome.

Yet always constant is Phoebe McLean the missionaries’ daughter who has loved John Lockley from afar since she was a child.

Joy weaves real people in with her fictitious characters and the tale unfolds to the ultimate tumultuous conclusion played out on the battlefield of the Zulu War of 1879 where something both men have always feared, comes true: they are on opposite sides.