Benita, an African Romance
1906
The ship is going down. Benita Beatrix Clifford knows it before the crew does, the way she knows things that cannot be known. Rescued from the wreck by a stranger who sacrifices his own safety to save hers, she arrives in colonial Africa to find her father, a man she has never met, and uncovers a mystery woven through generations: a lost Portuguese treasure, buried somewhere in the Transvaal, guarded by forces both human and otherwise. Benita sees spirits. She sees the future. She sees what others cannot, and this gift marks her as something other in a world that has no place for women like her except as curiosities or conveniences. What follows is a romance woven through adventure, as Benita uses her uncanny sight to lead a dangerous hunt for gold while navigating the treacherous politics of colonial settlement and the awakening of her own defiant heart. Haggard, creator of She and King Solomon's Mines, gives us a heroine who refuses to be merely beautiful or merely brave. She is both, but she is also something far more unsettling: a woman who sees past the veil of the living world, and who must choose what she is willing to sacrifice for what she loves.
