Rhino Dreams: A Novel

Description

Clare Rainbow-Dashell, the only child of delightfully eccentric, wealthy hippies, has just taken a hiatus from her career as an acclaimed wildlife photographer and returned to California to pursue her academic dreams when a disastrous affair with a professor catapults her to another continent: Africa. There, she immerses herself in well-paid commercial work for a luxury safari lodge as she seeks to regain her emotional and financial self-reliance. All this, however, is complicated by her relationship with her charismatic, imperious employer and her undeniable attraction to a leading black rhino specialist-two men who are at war over both environmental politics and Clare herself. Set against the formidable backdrop of the Namib Desert, Rhino Dreams dramatizes the crisis of endangered species preservation and the horrors of poaching, interweaving this very real ecological darkness with the internal and external battles of three characters driven by fierce passions and divided notions of duty, ambition, and desire. It is a sometimes humorous, sometimes poignant ride-and, in the end, a testimony to how tenuous and precious both life and love can be.

Carolyn Waggoner has been caring for and about animals her entire life. She currently lives in Davis, California, with a sizeable menagerie of rescue creatures-and an indulgent veterinarian husband. Carolyn devotes her days to throwing sticks, scooping litter boxes, preparing meals, and, on rare occasions, even writing. Raised in the high plains (mining towns) of Wyoming and Montana, Kathryn Williams couldn't wait to see the world. After serving as a Peace Corps English teacher in Afghanistan, then traveling across India, Turkey, and Greece, she returned to the US, where she began teaching college composition in Northern California, using summers to continue traveling throughout South America, Mexico, Canada, and Europe. Rhino Dreams, set in far-flung Namibia, seemed a perfect locale for her first book. Kathryn lives in Northern California with her husband and their very demanding Sheltie, and is currently finishing a book of short stories set in the least exotic locale imaginable: a down-at-the-heels trailer park in hurricane-prone Florida.

"Rhino Dreams is a charming and well written debut novel featuring a love story compelling enough to constitute its very own literary safari to Namibia. Where the plight and lives of the local wildlife just might break your heart!" -John Lescroart, New York Times best-selling author