Fiction

Debbie Dugmore spent her childhood on the Mazoe Citrus Estate in 1950s  Rhodesia. This memoir depicts family and rural life as seen through a small child’s eyes. She spends very busy days with a  menagerie of animal companions and her elder brother Marcus. Nothing happens or exists without a thorough investigation and life is enjoyed to the hilt as it only it  can in a child's world. Everything is exciting from going to cattle auctions with her father, to sitting on a nest of tennis balls in her mother's hen coop.

Filled with colourful characters, it is a delightful story where determination and curiosity are paramount; often with amusing or unexpected consequences. With her childhood memories and Africa close to her heart, Debbie transports us to the idyll of childhood.

Please note - this is the e-book version of the book. Upon purchase you will be sent the PDF version for reading on a device of your choosing

Also available on the Rebates Zone  http://www.rebateszone.com/top-holiday-gift-ideas-2016

Debbie Dugmore spent her childhood on the Mazoe Citrus Estate in 1950s  Rhodesia. This memoir depicts family and rural life as seen through a small child’s eyes. She spends very busy days with a  menagerie of animal companions and her elder brother Marcus. Nothing happens or exists without a thorough investigation and life is enjoyed to the hilt as it only it  can in a child's world. Everything is exciting from going to cattle auctions with her father, to sitting on a nest of tennis balls in her mother's hen coop.

Filled with colourful characters, it is a delightful story where determination and curiosity are paramount; often with amusing or unexpected consequences. With her childhood memories and Africa close to her heart, Debbie transports us to the idyll of childhood.

Please note - this is the hard cover version of the book

The old houses of Maritzburg have, over the years, been the subject of much discussion, research and heartbreak, as general neglect and municipal mismanagement have contributed to a decaying cityscape.

No longer can Maritzburg be described as one of the most beautiful Victorian cities in the world. However, business has had a role in the salvation of some of these old dowagers, in utilising them for corporate purposes; and so, too, have those owners who have the will, the love and the means to keep the homes in pristine condition.
A wide range of architectural styles is evident – for the buildings are not exclusively Victorian but also Voortrekker, Edwardian, Tudor and Italian Renaissance, and Art Deco in design. Examples of these have been selected and intertwined with the stories of the families who have lived in particular homes.  These echoes of the past that line our streets link us to the city's history and their grace and charm should be recognised and preserved before it is too late.

Featuring more than 30 houses with over 250 photographs - each
house has a story to tell.

Blonde and beautiful, statuesque and vivacious with a fine sense of the dramatic, José Dale Lace became the darling of London aristocratic society, at first.  Within a short time, the same exclusive circle shunned her for her scandalous indiscretion.  Not to be deterred or subjected to a manipulative and titled lover, she became an actress at the famous Haymarket Theatre, her maiden role in Oscar Wilde’s A Woman of No Importance.  Here women were charmed by her grace and beauty, men quite bewitched by her irresistible allure.  She met and married handsome, immaculately dressed John Lace, a Sir Galahad who embraced her and took in her illegitimate son, Lancelot, as his own.  And they lived in the roller-coaster world of high finance, diamonds and gold in the early years of South Africa’s mining Randlords.  Life in Johannesburg included sumptuous banquets, parties and entertainment in their magnificent Herbert Baker home. José was the talk of the town:  she bathed regularly in fresh milk, slept between black silk sheets and drove her coach pulled by four zebra.  But Fate intervened in this idyll, took the wealth, burnt the mansion and plunged her from riches to rags like an upside-down Cinderella.    

about the author:  Pamela Heller-Stern, born in Cape Town, is the writer of poetry, poetic drama, political satire and author of the novels The Pink Slippers, It’s a Red Moon and a Green Man, Who’s Knocking on my Door? and Have a Heart, launched in the UK in August 2018. She lives and writes in Johannesburg. ­­(Website:  www.authorpamela.com).

COMMENTS/REVIEW OF JOSE DALE LACE: A WOMAN OF SOME IMPORTANCE BY PAMELA HELLER-STERN

 Carl Landsberg:

 Your novel is excellent; it makes sense to revert to a more conventional and conversational prose style so as not to hamper the narrative impetus and the vast sweep of history encompassed in the whole-life portrait of JDL.  It is surely not common for 20th Century authors of historical fiction focussing on famous real-life historical personages to embrace a cradle to grave narrative……

The novel’s chapter headings as per your previous novels serve as signposts/leitmotifs for the unfolding narrative; as always catchy and appropriate and reflecting the carefully mapped architecture.  The structure of the book is intricately mapped and planned and bears evidence of the two-year gestation period in the writing and voluminous research.

As anticipated, the novel reads like the wind, short chapters keep the attention from flagging; your novel is meticulously researched and annotated as expected, fascinating, and does full justice to its subject.  The well-considered layering and accretion of details are especially enjoyable to read, almost serving as cameos which embellish and burnish the character development and narrative; a skilful picture of the manners and social mores and class distinctions of the late 19th Century Britain and dawning era of the new emancipated woman emerges and equally a most authentic depiction of Johannesburg as an upstart mining town growing at a feverish pace from the late 19th Century onwards and the affluent lifestyles of the Parktown Randlords.

Your novel gives a convincing sense of a distant time and place and the privileged life of its refined but slightly maverick leading lady as well as the numerous people in her social and family ambit.  I particularly liked the intricate descriptions pertaining to fashion, apparel, hair styling, corsetry, interior decor, equestrian activities, fine dining, modes of transport and most especially the account of the commissioning and construction of Northwards, and also the various dwellings and gardens JDL inhabited/visited viz hotels, spas and stately homes.

I particularly like the use of prologue and epilogue as a framing device for the novel, bookends to the narrative; the observations of the semi-autobiographical narrator/journalist “Grace Kilmartin” pertaining to the Villa Cimbrone on the Amalfi coast as a mirror and counterpoint to Northwards in Parktown with the contrasting fortunes of Ernest Beckett and John Dale Lace, as is the especially clever and oblique by-the-way reference to Jose Dale Lace in the prologue which piques the reader’s interest.  The seminal role of Ernest Beckett in Jose Dale Lace’s life, the roué/seducer who compromises her reputation and whose ignoble renunciation of his marriage proposal propels her rebound marriage to John Lace. The Prologue and Epilogue work effectively as a zooming out and zooming in, and jump cut into the present from a 100-year old narrative. The elemental link between Jose and John Dale Lace, as with many long-time partners, expiring within a few months of each other is quite touching. The chamber music recital at the close of the novel brings the reader up to date with the present-day Northwards restored by George Albu and the lingering charm and atmospherics of the mansion especially the grand entertainment hall, the focus of Herbert Baker’s architectural plan………

There is much to discuss and enquire after; the selective ad imaginative use of source material.  I enjoyed the restrained use of dialogue which is plausible and sounds authentic and in-character, the skilful imagination of correspondence between Jose and Nellie, her sister and her various benefactors – the compendious detail of entertainment, lavish dinner menus, suppers and social activities and intrigues befitting the moneyed classes.

The closing of the novel is enigmatic and delivers a witty, tiny frisson with the idea of a ghostly Jose sweeping down the grand stairway towards the Great Hall where she must have made many dramatic appearances.

Like all good fiction, the novel engenders further reading and enquiry…..

It was a stroke of luck to be granted permission by the Northwards Trust to reproduce the iconic portrait on the cover of the book.  JDL was celebrated for her beauty, glamour, flair for fashion and vivacious personality. She is the epitome of the Belle Epoque bombshell.  Her appeal was primarily to men… The portrait is larger than life quite literally) and exquisite and so was she. The novel is dense with historicity and impeccable researched details relating to inter alia the Anglo-Boer War, Jameson raid, conflicted allegiances and politics of the Randlords, the course of the First World War, sinking of the Galway, eclectic Art and Crafts architecture in Jhb in the early 20th Century, the humble/trade origins of many of the Randlords, the vagaries of personal fortunes and politics in the lives of the Randlords and the intrusion of bad luck in the lives of John and Jose Dale Lace.  For a slim novel, it is quite encyclopaedic in scope, not much is speculative or sketchy. The chapter dealing with a grand banquet/dinner at Northwards has the full crowd of Randlords and captains of industry in attendance – Lionel Phillips, George Farrar, Solly Joel, Sammy Marks etc.

As always, a highly visual and compelling narrative which would translate especially well as a bio-pic.  I particularly like the chapter detailing the temporary exile/relocation of the Dale Laces to East London during the Anglo-Boer War and the elaborate preparations for bathing, and the chapter depicting the young Jose’s maiden voyage to the UK with her chaperone, snappily dressed and hectoring to visit the blue dining room on the cruise ship.

In summary, well done.  I hope you will be approaching Love Books to host a further launch/promotion.  I think they have a captive audience for this type of novel……also to make novel available on various online platforms…

NB - This is the Ebook version of this product

Blonde and beautiful, statuesque and vivacious with a fine sense of the dramatic, José Dale Lace became the darling of London aristocratic society, at first.  Within a short time, the same exclusive circle shunned her for her scandalous indiscretion.  Not to be deterred or subjected to a manipulative and titled lover, she became an actress at the famous Haymarket Theatre, her maiden role in Oscar Wilde’s A Woman of No Importance.  Here women were charmed by her grace and beauty, men quite bewitched by her irresistible allure.  She met and married handsome, immaculately dressed John Lace, a Sir Galahad who embraced her and took in her illegitimate son, Lancelot, as his own.  And they lived in the roller-coaster world of high finance, diamonds and gold in the early years of South Africa’s mining Randlords.  Life in Johannesburg included sumptuous banquets, parties and entertainment in their magnificent Herbert Baker home. José was the talk of the town:  she bathed regularly in fresh milk, slept between black silk sheets and drove her coach pulled by four zebra.  But Fate intervened in this idyll, took the wealth, burnt the mansion and plunged her from riches to rags like an upside-down Cinderella.    

about the author:  Pamela Heller-Stern, born in Cape Town, is the writer of poetry, poetic drama, political satire and author of the novels The Pink Slippers, It’s a Red Moon and a Green Man, Who’s Knocking on my Door? and Have a Heart, launched in the UK in August 2018. She lives and writes in Johannesburg. ­­(Website:  www.authorpamela.com).

COMMENTS/REVIEW OF JOSE DALE LACE: A WOMAN OF SOME IMPORTANCE BY PAMELA HELLER-STERN

 Carl Landsberg:

 Your novel is excellent; it makes sense to revert to a more conventional and conversational prose style so as not to hamper the narrative impetus and the vast sweep of history encompassed in the whole-life portrait of JDL.  It is surely not common for 20th Century authors of historical fiction focussing on famous real-life historical personages to embrace a cradle to grave narrative……

The novel’s chapter headings as per your previous novels serve as signposts/leitmotifs for the unfolding narrative; as always catchy and appropriate and reflecting the carefully mapped architecture.  The structure of the book is intricately mapped and planned and bears evidence of the two-year gestation period in the writing and voluminous research.

As anticipated, the novel reads like the wind, short chapters keep the attention from flagging; your novel is meticulously researched and annotated as expected, fascinating, and does full justice to its subject.  The well-considered layering and accretion of details are especially enjoyable to read, almost serving as cameos which embellish and burnish the character development and narrative; a skilful picture of the manners and social mores and class distinctions of the late 19th Century Britain and dawning era of the new emancipated woman emerges and equally a most authentic depiction of Johannesburg as an upstart mining town growing at a feverish pace from the late 19th Century onwards and the affluent lifestyles of the Parktown Randlords.

Your novel gives a convincing sense of a distant time and place and the privileged life of its refined but slightly maverick leading lady as well as the numerous people in her social and family ambit.  I particularly liked the intricate descriptions pertaining to fashion, apparel, hair styling, corsetry, interior decor, equestrian activities, fine dining, modes of transport and most especially the account of the commissioning and construction of Northwards, and also the various dwellings and gardens JDL inhabited/visited viz hotels, spas and stately homes.

I particularly like the use of prologue and epilogue as a framing device for the novel, bookends to the narrative; the observations of the semi-autobiographical narrator/journalist “Grace Kilmartin” pertaining to the Villa Cimbrone on the Amalfi coast as a mirror and counterpoint to Northwards in Parktown with the contrasting fortunes of Ernest Beckett and John Dale Lace, as is the especially clever and oblique by-the-way reference to Jose Dale Lace in the prologue which piques the reader’s interest.  The seminal role of Ernest Beckett in Jose Dale Lace’s life, the roué/seducer who compromises her reputation and whose ignoble renunciation of his marriage proposal propels her rebound marriage to John Lace. The Prologue and Epilogue work effectively as a zooming out and zooming in, and jump cut into the present from a 100-year old narrative. The elemental link between Jose and John Dale Lace, as with many long-time partners, expiring within a few months of each other is quite touching. The chamber music recital at the close of the novel brings the reader up to date with the present-day Northwards restored by George Albu and the lingering charm and atmospherics of the mansion especially the grand entertainment hall, the focus of Herbert Baker’s architectural plan………

There is much to discuss and enquire after; the selective ad imaginative use of source material.  I enjoyed the restrained use of dialogue which is plausible and sounds authentic and in-character, the skilful imagination of correspondence between Jose and Nellie, her sister and her various benefactors – the compendious detail of entertainment, lavish dinner menus, suppers and social activities and intrigues befitting the moneyed classes.

The closing of the novel is enigmatic and delivers a witty, tiny frisson with the idea of a ghostly Jose sweeping down the grand stairway towards the Great Hall where she must have made many dramatic appearances.

Like all good fiction, the novel engenders further reading and enquiry…..

It was a stroke of luck to be granted permission by the Northwards Trust to reproduce the iconic portrait on the cover of the book.  JDL was celebrated for her beauty, glamour, flair for fashion and vivacious personality. She is the epitome of the Belle Epoque bombshell.  Her appeal was primarily to men… The portrait is larger than life quite literally) and exquisite and so was she. The novel is dense with historicity and impeccable researched details relating to inter alia the Anglo-Boer War, Jameson raid, conflicted allegiances and politics of the Randlords, the course of the First World War, sinking of the Galway, eclectic Art and Crafts architecture in Jhb in the early 20th Century, the humble/trade origins of many of the Randlords, the vagaries of personal fortunes and politics in the lives of the Randlords and the intrusion of bad luck in the lives of John and Jose Dale Lace.  For a slim novel, it is quite encyclopaedic in scope, not much is speculative or sketchy. The chapter dealing with a grand banquet/dinner at Northwards has the full crowd of Randlords and captains of industry in attendance – Lionel Phillips, George Farrar, Solly Joel, Sammy Marks etc.

As always, a highly visual and compelling narrative which would translate especially well as a bio-pic.  I particularly like the chapter detailing the temporary exile/relocation of the Dale Laces to East London during the Anglo-Boer War and the elaborate preparations for bathing, and the chapter depicting the young Jose’s maiden voyage to the UK with her chaperone, snappily dressed and hectoring to visit the blue dining room on the cruise ship.

In summary, well done.  I hope you will be approaching Love Books to host a further launch/promotion.  I think they have a captive audience for this type of novel……also to make novel available on various online platforms…

Just Before Dinner showcases the work of past and current members of a Johannesburg creative writing workshop that has been in operation for 35 years. It was begun at the Johannesburg Art Foundation in Saxonwold, when the artist-director, Bill Ainslie, invited Lionel Abrahams to hold a weekly writing class there. At first it was an afternoon extra for the art students, but the idea rapidly expanded to include an evening session for anyone who wanted to join, and before long up to 18 participants gathered around the big orange table at No. 6, Westwold Way, Saxonwold, on a Monday evening. Lionel’s gentle, perceptive and always wise criticism encouraged a great many writers, eventually including such names as Barbara Adair, Barbara Bailey, Maureen Isaacson, E. M. Macphail, David Medalie, Lionel Murcott, Carl Niehaus, Zachariah Rapola and Immanuel Suttner.

Jane Fox has been facilitating the Thursday Workshop since her husband, Lionel Abrahams, died in 2004. She has published two novels, three biographies and two poetry collections. She runs a specialist library and bookshop in Johannesburg, and writes and directs plays which are performed by a small but enthusiastic amateur theatre company. In her spare time she sings with the Johannesburg Bach Choir, and enjoys being at home with an extended family of children and grandchildren in a rambling old house and garden.

Kay Brown was unsure of which direction to take after matriculating. She was advised by her mother, an English teacher: ‘Study the sciences, the arts will always be there.’ Kay followed this advice and was a member of the first class ever to graduate in Computer Science at Wits. She worked as a programmer and a lecturer, and started and ran her own computer school. Then, when her children left home, she found that the arts were still there. She joined Lionel Abrahams’ writing group and under his mentorship had a number of short stories and humour pieces published. Wits was still there, too, and recently she did her MA in Creative Writing there. Although she still earns her living in the sciences she devotes more and more time to writing and remains an active and enthusiastic member of the writing workshop.

A young man sets out to build a boat from materials scrounged from building sites and bought with carefully hoarded occasional wages; it becomes an object of love as each plank and screw finds its place over many months. The small catamaran is painstakingly transferred to the coast where it is finished and finally launched on an extraordinary maiden voyage.

This is an adventure of a rare kind, which not only describes a sea-going experience in authentic detail, but which also evokes the sounds and smells of a misty estuary anchorage in winter among a  fishing population who are not always friendly to this young stranger. David Jeppe writes beautiful, lyrical prose, and the voyage, with its surprising, heart-wrenching ending, will live long in the memories of readers who enjoy a good yarn and a thought-provoking journey into the depths of the human heart.

South Africa’s Black Economic Empowerment (B.E.E.) policy has produced a super-rich strata of society, appropriately nicknamed the Black Diamonds. Neo is the perfect B.E.E. wife to Tshepo Dube, a wealthy Johannesburg businessman, who abuses her and is known to have affairs.

In this dazzling tale of intrigue, Neo eventually tries to beat Tshepo at his own dangerous game with some alarming consequences...  Aided by her loyal friends and the wisdom of the older Black Diamond wives, Neo struggles against sangomas, adultery and her own low self-esteem in her quest to become a Queen B.E.E.

Lebo Matseke provides a fascinating insight into the Black Diamond society and what happens to those who transgress the unspoken rules of the game.

About The Author

Lebogang Neo Matseke was born  in 1983 into a medical family but took her cue from her paternal grandfather, a high school principal and author of many books written in  Tswana. Following her dream to produce and direct movies she studied at the Wits Business School  and  thereafter spent a year in Delhi furthering her studies. However severe illness struck and Lebo was forced to rethink her career. Writing became an escape from her illness and she attended the Thursday Workshops in Johannesburg held by Jane Fox, the well-known poet and mentor. Lebo initially wanted to write about the lives of Black Diamond Women but a burglary at her family’s holiday home where she herself was a victim, introduced a new element into her storytelling. Queen B.E.E. is the outcome.

*Queen B.E.E. will be launched on 18 April 2015 in Johannesburg.

These stories about life in a small Karoo town sparkle with humour and delight. Set in the mid to late 1940s, a time when the deprivation and suffering caused by the Second World War were beginning to lift, and people were starting to look to a more hopeful future, they draw on the rich tradition of South African storytelling in the Pauline Smith and Herman Charles Bosman vein, and will captivate readers with their optimism and insight.

Stan Schoeman spent most of his adolescent years in a town like Soetwater, and draws upon his recollections, impressions, observation and personal experience to describe what it is like. A town by this name does not appear on any South African map, but there are countless like it, populated by people not unlike the characters who appear in this book, interacting with each other in an environment where a scarcity of material goods does not prevent them from having fun.

Speech after long Silence is Moira Lovell's fourth collection of poetry.  Wide-ranging in locality, subject matter and mood, the poems demonstrate the characteristic precision and conciseness that the poet brings to her work.  She delights in the magic, the music, the mystery of words; in striking combinations of sounds; and in startling images.  Her work is, variously, witty, humorous, poignant and always meticulously crafted.

'Writing poetry,' she says, 'is not a choice, but a compulsion.  I write because I have to; I write because I want to; I write because it gives me a sense of self; I write because each inky mess of words, asterisks and arrows that resolves itself into a poem is an act of control in an uncontrollable world.'

Moira Lovell has recently retired from The Wykeham Collegiate, Pietermaritzburg, where she was Head of the English Department for many years. She has had three collections of poetry published: Out of the Mist (Snailpress, 1994); Departures (Snailpress, 1997); and Not all of Me is Dust (University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2004).  Her poetry has appeared in many South African journals, including Carapace, New Coin, New Contrast and Stanzas. It has also been included in numerous anthologies and textbooks.

As well as writing poetry, Moira Lovell has written a number of Short Stories and plays. In 2000, she won the Olive Schreiner Award for Drama (Playwriting) for Bedtime Stories

The genesis of Chris Perold’s book The Private World of Normand Dunn stems from the
author’s four-year friendship with the artist, an involvement which has continued to
deepen and grow in the period of more than twenty-five years since the artist’s death.
The prolonged study of Dunn’s painting has convinced the writer that the assessment of
the artist’s work, up to the time of his death, fell short of a true appreciation of its worth.
Critics saw little beyond the anecdotal nature of the paintings, the fun, the ‘naivety’ and
the delight. This was the public face of Dunn’s work: beneath it, the author contends, lies
a private world of even greater significance, a world in which the essential elements of our
being are examined, depicted and, by implication, commented upon – all with a gently
satirical eye. It is this re-assessment which forms the basis of Chris’s book, illustrated with
reproductions and commentaries on more than one hundred of the artist’s paintings.
This book, he hopes, will help to accord to Normand Dunn his rightful place in the
annals of South African art.

‘Chris Perold must be commended for undertaking to enable a wider public to study, enjoy and
admire the art of Normand Dunn … His book is a welcome and an important addition to the
growing literature on art in South Africa. We thank him for that. And we belatedly thank Normand
Dunn for his unique contribution to our art.’
Dr Hans Fransen, Cultural Historian and former Director of the Michaelis Collection, Cape Town