It’s 1965, and 18 year old Jess escapes her stifling English home for a gap year in Ghana, West Africa.
But it’s a time of political turbulence across the region. Fighting to keep her young love who waits back in England, she’s thrown into the physical and emotional dangers of civil war, tragedy and the conflict of a disturbing new relationship. And why do the drumbeats haunt her dreams?
This is a rite of passage story which takes the reader hand in hand with Jess on her journey towards the complexities and mysteries of a disconcerting adult world.
This is the first novel in the acclaimed Drumbeats trilogy: Drumbeats, Walking in the Rain, Finding Jess.
For fans of Dinah Jefferies, Kate Morton, Rachel Hore, Jenny Ashcroft
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Award-winning author Julia Ibbotson herself spent an exciting time in Ghana, West Africa, teaching and nursing (like Jess in her books), and always vowed to write about the country and its past. And
so, the Drumbeats Trilogy was born.
She’s also fascinated by history, especially by the medieval world, and concepts of time travel, and has written haunting time-slips of romance and mystery partly set in the Anglo-Saxon period. She studied English at Keele University, England, specialising in medieval language, literature and history, and has a PhD in linguistics. She wrote her first novel at age 10, but became a school teacher, then university lecturer and researcher. Her love of writing never left her and to date she’s written 9 books, with a 10th on the way. She’s a member of the Romantic Novelists Association, Society of Authors and the Historical Novel Society.
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My thoughts: I found Jess’ adventures in 1960s Ghana utterly fascinating, I will admit it’s a period I don’t know a lot about, so it was really interesting to learn some history, as well as join Jess in her personal voyage of discovery. Breaking free of her mother’s restrictive rules and seeing the world for the first time, Jess is a lively, fun and intelligent protagonist.
She’s trying to forget some of the unpleasant things that happened to her when she was younger and discover who she is now she’s an adult with her whole future ahead of her. Teaching in a school outside Accra, she’s delighted by her pupils and wants to help the impoverished villagers she meets. She also meets a somewhat mysterious American, who hints at being involved in the politics of the time, but never outright says he’s a spy.
Full of life and adventure, this is a great book, I can’t wait to read the next installment of Jess’ life.
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*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
ramblingmads 
Thank you so much for your lovely review of my book Drumbeats. Much appreciated.
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