The Blogging from A to Z April Challenge  is for bloggers who wish to participate by publishing a blog post every day in April except for Sundays. Each blog post will focus on a letter of the alphabet. For example April 1 will be A, April 2 will be B and on it goes. By the end of April, a blog post for every letter of the alphabet will have been posted. My theme for 2023 is Book Reviews.

You can read my reviews without worrying about spoilers. My reviews are quite brief and I give away nothing more than you would read on the back cover or on Goodreads.

Zambesi
by
Tony Park

Summary

“When a young American research assistant is killed by a man-eating lion, three people are devastated – Jed Banks, an American Special Forces soldier serving in Afghanistan; Professor Christine Wallis, a wildlife researcher in South Africa; and Hassan bin Zayid, a hotel magnate in Zambia. The victim, Miranda Banks-Lewis, was their daughter, protegee and lover respectively.

Desperate to find out what happened to Miranda, Jed and Christine, with the help of a determined Australian journalist, set out on a perilous journey of discovery in Africa. Forced to pit themselves against the continent’s dangers, they will also learn shocking truths about the woman they thought they knew.

A superb successor to the bestselling Far Horizon, Zambezi is an unputdownable novel of love, loyalty, betrayal and revenge set against the magnificence and terror of Africa” – Goodreads

Published 2005
Audiobook 16 hours 50 minutes

My Thoughts

I chose to use the Goodreads summary as they were the words that convinced me to read this book. When I came across Zambesi, I was just casually browsing and looking for a Z book. There isn’t much choice for the letter Z so when I came across the words in the summary I was very excited and I couldn’t wait to start listening to the audio book. At almost 17 hours, it is quite a long time commitment, but I have almost two hours in the car every day, going to and from work, and I listen to audio books on my walks, so it didn’t take too long.

Zambesi could be classed as a boys own adventure. It had everything that you would expect from an action thriller – mystery, adventure, suspense, terrorism, intrigue, danger and even gung ho characters. I found myself occasionally gripping the steering wheel so tightly, and felt I had to turn the book off, as I wasn’t concentrating on my driving. At times the danger and intruigue are very intense, heart stopping, and at times quite gruesome.

Other than the action in the book, I absolutely loved reading descriptions of Africa and it’s safari parks and of course the animals. Some of the animals are anthropomorphised, which did confused me the first time I came across it, until I worked out just what was going on. I came to love those parts of the story.

The characters were relatable and mostly likeable. The few that were not likeable were meant to be that way. There are many pages to this book, which has given space for the author to develop the characters realistically and fully.

My only issue with this story is that I really wish that I had read the actual book and not listened to the audio book. The story is so great that I would love to have read the words on the page.

“……Zambesi is an unputdownable novel of love, loyalty, betrayal and revenge, set against the magnificence and terror of Africa.

Action/adventure is not a genre that I would usually read, but I loved everything about Zambesi. I will definitely be reading more of Tony Park’s books. My last book for the April AtoZ Challenge definitely was a highlight read.

All books that I review have been purchased by me or borrowed from the library, unless otherwise stated.

About the Author

Tony Park was born in 1964 and grew up in the western suburbs of Sydney. He has worked as a newspaper reporter in Australia and England, a government press secretary, a public relations consultant, and a freelance writer.

He served 34 years in the Australian Army Reserve, including six months in Afghanistan in 2002. Tony and his wife, Nicola, split their time between Australia and Africa, where they own a house on the edge of the Kruger National Park. – Goodreads

Star Rating 

Please note that my star rating system isn’t at all based on literary merit, but is based on my enjoyment for the book.
For me a book that gets five stars, is a book that I really enjoyed, and found difficult to put down.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️Unputdownable. Would definitely read again
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️Fantastic read. Not to be missed.
⭐️⭐️⭐️Enjoyable read. Would recommend.
⭐️⭐️Wouldn’t read again
⭐️Don’t recommend this book again

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Images and author information: Goodreads

You can find my other blogs here:
Next Phase In Fitness & Life and Tracking Down The Family

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