Cape of Storms

Eight year old Rosalinde lives in an idyllic version of Africa -- vervet monkeys in her garden, the lighthouse that illuminates her bedroom window at night, and Mohini, her mystical Hindu maid who is more maternal than her own mother -- until a moment in 1982, when she collides with apartheid and her entire belief system is thrown into chaos.

Mainly set on Durban's breathtaking North Coast, over a period of seventeen years, the story moves between atmospheric locations like the Skeleton Coast, Karoo, Cape Point, and KwaMashu, and hosts an array of vivid characters, including the charismatic Paris and his radical cousin Maleven; Mark, the ex-soldier; and Rosalinde's predatory, racist Uncle Léon.

While navigating personal injustice, family sagas, romance, and political unrest, Rosalinde's coming of age parallels the years of apartheid's climactic end, against an increasingly violent backdrop, and she learns that the human condition of her motherland is far more complex than she ever imagined.

EDITORIAL REVIEWS

★★★★1/2 Childhood innocence and grown-up cruelty clash in Cape of Storms by author Bianca Bowers, a gripping coming-of-age tale woven through one of the darkest periods in South African history. Rosalinde is the precocious and endearing protagonist, an 8-year-old whose life is shaken and eyes are opened over the course of two shocking decades. With the South African landscape as a beautiful but sinister setting, this novel is a gripping and unforgettable account of one of humanity's great failures, told with sensitivity and eloquence from a uniquely powerful perspective.

Henry, SPR (Self-Publishing Review)

★★★★★ "A cry against the wind, a fusion of beauty and blood, a fierceless look into the heart of darkness.

Athough I have read three of her five poetry collections, and am aware of her talent as a story teller, the story she tells and the powerful way in which she tells it caught me utterly unprepared for this unique piece of writing, bringing together beauty and violence and conveying it all through a perfectly orchestrated cast of characters.

Structured as a coming-of-age novel "Cape of Storms" follows the thorny roads Rosalinde (Ros) has to walk over two decades. As a character she is not afraid to speak the truth as she sees it, irrespective of the consequences, and on many occasions the consequences are mind-shattering.

Being a bright, brave and sensitive person, Ros goes in search of answers to life's questions, the goal of which is maturity. I am not giving out any spoilers but will just say that in "Cape of Storms" Ros's maturity is not achieved gradually, rather it is attained at the expense of excruciating emotional and physical pain.

The novel, true to the genre, features a main conflict between Rosalinde, as the main character, and society. But what is typical for the coming-of-age novel is also a reconciliation of sorts between the protagonist's values and the values of society. In the world of "Cape of Storms" such a reconciliation, such an acceptance is hardly possible.

This story is told in such a powerful way that in the hours that I read it, I felt all the pain, suffering, beauty, love, despair, violence, shattering the living body of Africa, and everyone in our contemporary flawed world can find something for themselves in it.

Galya Varna, We Art Friends Magazine.

★★★★★ "A brave, poignant novel about race, belonging and female ambition by an author with a lilting, poet's ear. I was moved by its authentic portrayal of South Africa, apartheid and complex human nature. There is no doubt that Bianca Bowers is a gifted wordsmith.

Nillu Nasser, Award-Winning Author of All the Tomorrows