A Free Book to Celebrate a New Home

I'm moving house & giving away a FREE book! 

Check out the new digs: http://veredehsani.co.za

It's a website dedicated to all things surreal, unreal and paranormal, especially if it’s from Africa. There’s also a smattering of African mythology, culture and history.

Sign up for the e-letter – not only is it fun and free, but you will receive a FREE book. It’s a win-win. And I don’t share out email addresses.

See you there!

Christmas Charity & Book Sales

There are a lot of reasons to be jolly this season! For the third year in a row, I have the privilege of participating in the Christmas Lites project. A group of authors have contributed short stories for an anthology; ALL the proceeds go to support a charity helping victims of domestic violence: the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. 

Christmas Lites III is available on Amazon (both paper and Kindle), Createspace and on Smashwords for other eBook formats. So hop on over and give a great gift that keeps giving!

 To add to the joy, I am also running a series of book sales throughout December on all my Kindle titles. Here is the schedule for the sale:

3 – 10 December: Where Shadows Dance

10 – 16 December: Lethal Takeout

17 – 23 December: Dragon’s Mind

19 – 25 December: Diary of a Part Time Ghost

21 – 27 December: Fatal Secrets

24 – 30 December: Dragon’s War

To learn more about all these books, visit my Book page. 

Happy Holidays!

I Got Pulled Over - Again: Nairobi 12

I don’t mean to sound like I’m bragging, because I’m really not, but I’ve been pulled over so many times by the police that I’ve lost count.

That’s not as bad as it sounds. I mean, if you drive in Kenya long enough (that is, for more than the average length of a tourist trip), you will be pulled over. Guaranteed.

You’ll be pulled over at arbitrary checkpoints, roadblocks, airport entrances, roundabouts.

You’ll be stopped if you’ve done something wrong, if you haven’t done anything wrong, if the police decides you need to have done something wrong or if it’s been a long month and someone needs an early payday.

Your chances of getting pulled over jump dramatically at the end of the month (someone has to pay the bills) and exponentially during December. Interestingly, the same holds true of getting carjacked or your house broken into.

So the point is that, basically, me being pulled over countless times is pretty much what you should expect if you live in Kenya.

Was I guilty of any traffic offense? Not to sound elusive or anything, but that’s kind of hard to say. In some cases, clearly not. In others, possibly, although I would swear on any holy book in any court that there wasn’t a sign post telling me not to turn at that corner, and the lines that were supposed to be on the road hadn’t yet been painted. And – I admit it, although I’ll deny it if you ask - a few times, yup, I was guilty.

And I talked my way out of each situation.

Meaning: I never paid a bribe to get out. And that is no small accomplishment.


An extract from Nairobi 12, a humorous novel about life in Nairobi. Release date: Working on it!

Don't forget to visit Africa Creates & listen in to the radio show

Nairobi 12: Our First House, Sort Of

The first house we rented in Nairobi was actually a two-bedroom guest cottage situated along a long, narrow road with the rather lengthy name of Rosslyn Lone Tree Estate. We were thrilled with our find: a tad small but sufficient for us; good security; backup water source (we had to forgo the luxury of a backup generator though); decent location; all for a great price. 

It really was perfect, a lovely old colonial era building, one floor perched above a garage that was used to store I don’t know what, but not cars. Surrounded by large trees, the cottage was small, cosy and with a lot of character.

Now, you might already know what that means, that whenever someone describes a house as having “character”, there will be issues. Well, we didn’t know this. Not until after we moved in, which was a bit too late to change our minds.

It started with the electrical outlets. 

First one set would stop working. The electrician, or someone who claimed to be one, would fix them, and the next day another set would fail. This went on for a while and having landed in Kenya so recently, I still had the rather naïve expectation that everything should work as per design. If there’s an outlet in the wall, it should work. Right? I mean, is it so strange to expect that a tap should have water in it? Or that an outlet should have electricity flowing through it? And so on. 

I have long since abandoned that unrealistic expectation and am thrilled if there’s enough water for a quick shower and a cup of tea. Electricity is way overrated. It’s amazing how long you can manage without it. And if only half the outlets work, that’s still more outlets than any human being really needs anyways.

An extract from Nairobi 12, a humorous novel about life in Nairobi. Release date: October 2013.

Don't forget to visit Africa Creates & listen in to the radio show! 

Telepathic Rats & Dragons

One of the premises for the Dragon & Myth series is that an organic brain could be linked up with a computer system. Pure Sci Fi fantasy or reality?

When I first wrote Dragon's Mind, I assumed it was all make-believe, a product of my daydreaming mind. But just today, I read an article about telepathic rats. Their brains connected to a computer by electrodes, the rats are able to communicate with each other, even across vast distances! 

From the article: "...the experiments could lead to the creation of a biological computer -- or "brain-net" -- linking multiple brains. In theory, you could imagine that a combination of brains could provide solutions that individual brains cannot achieve by themselves."

To read the full article, click HERE

And don't forget to visit http://africacreates.net/about/ and learn about the show that's coming to a computer near you on 21 March! Subscribe so you don't miss a thing.

New Book & New Radio Show!

The sequel to Lethal Takeout is now out! Fatal Secrets continues the story of Axe Cooper and his ghost friends as they battle ghost-eating monsters while tracking down a body in this dark humoured paranormal mystery. Available in Kindle; Paper edition soon to come. Click HERE

What do you think of the book cover?

And Africa Creates is set to launch end of March! Stay tuned for more details. Interested in getting involved? Find out more on igg.me/at/Africa-Creates-Radio-Show. Don't want to miss a thing? Subscribe to the newsletter at AfricaCreates.net/ 

Announcing Africa Creates!

Africa Creates is an online radio show that I'm starting. It will provide a platform for African writers, musicians and filmmakers to be heard and promoted both locally and internationally. Every week, the show will highlight and interview one artist. I already have one online radio station (based in the USA) that has agreed to air the show, and I will be approaching others as well.

For more information, take a look at AfricaCreates.net and subscribe to the newsletter. Also visit our Indiegogo campaign site: igg.me/at/Africa-Creates-Radio-Show and see the various ways you can support it. Thanks so much!