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Monday, 14 April 2014
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Jozi Gold: MediaUpdate; 05 March 2014
Leanne Hunt's debut novel delves into the lives of the well-to-do
What is special about this debut novel is not its characters, although they are well-rounded and deliciously real. It’s not the fact that on the surface it is a gentle meander through the lives of well-to-do South Africans living in the affluent suburbs of Johannesburg, while underneath it unlocks a world of human desire, anxiety and need.
By Abbygail Zwane
Nor is it because it is set in the midst of the 2010 Soccer World Cup. It’s that the author of Jozi Gold, is in fact blind. You would never tell by reading the novel. Her descriptions, sense of space and place are astute and deliberate, taking the reader on a fast-paced journey through the lives of characters who are all connected.
The story revolves around Jeannie, a slightly overweight housewife with a good-looking husband, two sons and a bossy sister. In her mind she has the perfect life: a beautiful house and a good marriage. Until her sister arrives from Australia. Jeannie discovers that her husband is having an affair with a sassy radio journalist. Her world falls apart but her life takes an unexpected and satisfying twist. It turns out that it is not only Jeannie’s husband who has secrets.
The author Leanne Hunt describes her journey as follows: “In writing Jozi Gold, I was particularly interested in the networks which connect people, and how forces within those networks exert subtle, often unexpected pressure. The novel grew out of a picture I had in my mind of various individuals who were unknown to each other but linked by their context and their relationships to one man. What started out as a thought experiment ended up as a fast-paced, complex romantic drama. The characters came alive for me and drove the action forward in a way I could scarcely foresee. In fact, it came as a real surprise that the outcome was so deliciously satisfying.”
Jozi Gold will appeal to readers who enjoy romantic dramas and those in need of a fresh perspective as they approach mid-life.
Jozi Gold is available from Books Galore, Exclusive Books and http://www.porcupinepress.co.za/shop/porcupine-books/jozi-gold-detail.html.
Nor is it because it is set in the midst of the 2010 Soccer World Cup. It’s that the author of Jozi Gold, is in fact blind. You would never tell by reading the novel. Her descriptions, sense of space and place are astute and deliberate, taking the reader on a fast-paced journey through the lives of characters who are all connected.
The story revolves around Jeannie, a slightly overweight housewife with a good-looking husband, two sons and a bossy sister. In her mind she has the perfect life: a beautiful house and a good marriage. Until her sister arrives from Australia. Jeannie discovers that her husband is having an affair with a sassy radio journalist. Her world falls apart but her life takes an unexpected and satisfying twist. It turns out that it is not only Jeannie’s husband who has secrets.
The author Leanne Hunt describes her journey as follows: “In writing Jozi Gold, I was particularly interested in the networks which connect people, and how forces within those networks exert subtle, often unexpected pressure. The novel grew out of a picture I had in my mind of various individuals who were unknown to each other but linked by their context and their relationships to one man. What started out as a thought experiment ended up as a fast-paced, complex romantic drama. The characters came alive for me and drove the action forward in a way I could scarcely foresee. In fact, it came as a real surprise that the outcome was so deliciously satisfying.”
Jozi Gold will appeal to readers who enjoy romantic dramas and those in need of a fresh perspective as they approach mid-life.
Jozi Gold is available from Books Galore, Exclusive Books and http://www.porcupinepress.co.za/shop/porcupine-books/jozi-gold-detail.html.
AUTHOR OF THE MONTH! Morag Wade Mackay with FACES & FOOTSTEPS
You are what you think you are……
Think more of yourself and there is MORE!
As a
teenager I was quiet and really quite shy.
Deciding what I was going to wear and which pop star should go up on my
wall was the scope of life’s choices but even at that stage I wanted MORE out
of life. So I asked for MORE, not realising how much I would get. I got a life
filled with challenges and many highs and lows but I also got an understanding
that any adversity came to make me MORE.
Faces and Footsteps – A
Simple Celebration of Life is a story of personal triumph; it is a story of overcoming utmost
distress of an overwhelming nature; it is a story about being on a mission to
succeed so strong that every stumbling block became a stepping stone to ultimate
success.
I was born in Paisley, Scotland and came to South Africa as a
toddler. Being brought up by parents who believed that children should be seen
and not heard my life was uneventful. Until the early hours of June the 7th
1980.
On the way home after celebrating my 17th birthday
the motorbike that I was riding pillion on was involved in a collision. My
injuries were severe, amongst which I broke my neck and subsequently lost my
right arm. While I was hospitalised for
9 months I began my journey of self-discovery and my new lease on life. During this time, I became inspired by
overcoming the many obstacles that were presented to me, in turn loving life as
I have come to know it. I underwent
numerous operations to get me safely on the right path to make my life an
adventure of success. Literal baby-steps
were the order of the day, as I rediscovered how to walk, talk and breathe
again. I was able to move beyond the
“if” word and experienced enormous benefit from my new limitations.
Among the mayhem, I completed my matriculation and was
introduced to the open market as a working class girl with a difference. One
hopes that a single life lesson is enough, but through the years I was to find
out that opportunities would be lost should I choose to live in the past and
that tests of compromise and adversity would be my destiny.
I progressed from strength to strength and felt rewarded and
fulfilled when I got married. I was able
to put negativity aside and met each assault stronger than before. The challenges I faced and overcame allowed
me to unearth the ‘Morag’ from where my name is derived – the great one!
Many doctors, nurses, paramedics and physiotherapists invested
much valuable time and knowledge to get me to the place that many spinal cord
patients only dream of, - to walk out of hospital.
Completing a task on my own that I would normally have done
with two hands does take me a while longer, but the satisfaction of being able
to do it by myself gives me a renewed sense of purpose and is rewarding enough
to justify my efforts.
Accomplishment is the building block to having a good opinion
of yourself and for some reason I found myself giving thanks for all the little
mundane things occurring around me that I had previously taken for granted. I found
that living in this positive realm of thankfulness attracted all that was
good. Life was unfolding for me.
For whatever
the reason, I was to be given a second chance and at the age of 17, the test of
compromise and courage began. Had God appeared in my life? I did not ask Him to
be there. Was this by divine intervention or had I innocently invited him? For
whatever reason, He was there to carry me on my path to success.
Undoubtedly,
I was to learn and grow from substantial adversity and through God’s grace I
was to be guided and protected along the way.
This book is my story but it is my wish that it will make you
look into the losses and challenges of your own lives, to enable you to find
the Hero within yourselves.
Faces and Footsteps reaches out to the awesome people
that I met on my journey and the ‘footsteps’ are also those of the faces that
journeyed with me and how they too came to rise above adversity, how they also
learnt how to celebrate life and learnt to grow victory beneath their feet.
I want this book to act as a mirror, to show the reader how
to look deep within and to start a process of self-discovery that turns so
called “misfortune” into hope and renewed opportunity.
Werner Weyer's ETERNITY: Media Update; 20 February 2014
Werner Weyer's Eternity hits the shelves
A crazy desert prophet, a missing woman and a bloody dress, Ronny Searching got more than he bargained for when he took the road to Eternity.
“This
was the Oasis Truck stop, a bar and grill that came to be more than a
landmark or a place with the best ribs and shooters. It was here that a
man in faded jeans sold wisdom for whisky. This stretch of desert
highway came from somewhere and was going nowhere. Once on this road it
was easy to forget where you were from, and the future was as far as the
next turn-off. The beautiful barren landscape swallowed you whole. This
was isolation heaven, a place conveniently forgotten except for those
whose lives depended on it.” So the novel begins.
Eternity started out originally as a short story Werner Weyer wrote in his teens, and years later, when he found it between some papers he was going through he found himself inspired to turn it into a book. The novel explores identity and forgotten dreams in a made-up place with a landscape readers will find familiar, if only for a fleeting instant.
Weyer says, “For me, writing comes from the desire to share all of my emotions and experiences. Beyond creating a space of enjoyment and familiarity for readers, it is also a self-fulfilling act – the experience of ultimate freedom of expression.”
Weyer was born in the bushveld town of Groblersdal in the Limpopo Province in South Africa. He has been writing for many years, in between hitchhiking his way to the big city and finding a roof over his head wherever the road took him. He has been awarded various accolades for his writing and his passion for the craft clearly shines through in his first novel. He currently resides in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Eternity is available at Exclusive Books, on www.amazon.com, www.kalahari.com and through www.porcupinepress.co.za.
Eternity started out originally as a short story Werner Weyer wrote in his teens, and years later, when he found it between some papers he was going through he found himself inspired to turn it into a book. The novel explores identity and forgotten dreams in a made-up place with a landscape readers will find familiar, if only for a fleeting instant.
Weyer says, “For me, writing comes from the desire to share all of my emotions and experiences. Beyond creating a space of enjoyment and familiarity for readers, it is also a self-fulfilling act – the experience of ultimate freedom of expression.”
Weyer was born in the bushveld town of Groblersdal in the Limpopo Province in South Africa. He has been writing for many years, in between hitchhiking his way to the big city and finding a roof over his head wherever the road took him. He has been awarded various accolades for his writing and his passion for the craft clearly shines through in his first novel. He currently resides in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Eternity is available at Exclusive Books, on www.amazon.com, www.kalahari.com and through www.porcupinepress.co.za.
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