A Fractured Land
Melissa A Volker
Karavan Press
Review: Karen Watkins
Lexi Taylor is desperate. Her runaway ex-husband has left her with a huge debt.
She moves back home to sleepy Graaff Reinet where former schoolmate Paul offers her a music gig with him in the local pub.
Serendipitously she also finds herself helping build and then manage a guesthouse on a farm nearby.
All is good until Texan geologist and the wayward son of an oil industry tycoon, Carter O’Brien, arrives in the Karoo Basin. This cantankerous former musician has been sent there to search for shale gas. It’s a fresh start and his last chance but the fracking could also threaten almost everyone in the area.
Volker’s romantic, suspenseful eco-fiction is sprinkled with humour juxtaposed with details about fracking pros and cons that are interesting and well researched.
Her vivid descriptions, convincing characters and superb dialogue run throughout, taking several plot turns to a satisfying ending.
Volker’s Shadow Flicker won the Strelitzia Award in 2017 from the Romance Writers Organisation of South Africa.
