As the daughter of a prim and proper New England family, expectations were that I would follow societal norms: attend college, get married, and raise a family. I knew practically nothing about the world outside the United States, nor had I any curiosity about it. Everything changed in 1980 when I took a job as an accountant working for one of the world’s greatest adventurers, Richard Bangs. He literally dragged me, kicking and screaming, into the remotest heart of Africa, where I became infected by wanderlust. Ever since, as a single woman, I have embraced a life of adventure traveling around our amazing planet.
I wrote
Becoming Fearless: Finding Courage in the African Wilderness
I lived in Bolivia in the late 1980s, and with three friends set off on a long wooden riverboat journey on the Rio Beni deep into the Amazon rainforest to the tiny jungle village of Rurrenebaque, a village strikingly similar to Ayachero where Ferencik set her story. I can verify that Ferencik’s detailed descriptions of the environment and its indigenous people perfectly capture the wilderness setting for this story.
The protagonist, Lily Bushwold, endures unimaginable challenges as she follows her new Bolivian love from La Paz back to his village. It is a world full of wonders and terrors, where she must use her wits to survive.
Featured in the New York Times Book Review Summer Reading Guide * A Crime by the Book "Most Anticipated" Novel * Featured in the New York Post Summer Round Up * Starred Publishers Weekly Review * A Publishers Weekly "Big Summer Books" * A Kirkus Reviews "Creepy Thrillers" Pick
In this pulse-pounding thriller from the author of the "haunting, twisting thrill ride" (Megan Miranda, New York Times bestselling author) The River at Night, a young woman leaves behind everything she knows to take on the Bolivian jungle, but her excursion abroad quickly turns into a fight for her life.
Cheryl Strayed was as naively unprepared for her hike on the Sierra Crest Trail as I was for my trip through the African wilderness.
She sought the wilderness to escape from a failed marriage and to cope with the death of her mother. We both encountered many unexpected challenges on our journeys that helped us to overcome the emotions that held us hostage. By the end of our respective journeys, we each had found life-altering strength, courage, and wisdom to move forward in our lives productively with confidence.
Stories that chronicle a person’s positive transformations are my favorites.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A powerful, blazingly honest memoir: the story of an eleven-hundred-mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe—and built her back up again.
At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life. With no experience or training, driven only by blind will, she would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from the…
I found the story of young Kya, abandoned by both parents and surviving on her own in a wild and rugged salt marsh along the North Carolina coast, both inspiring and heartbreaking.
Nature teaches and provides for her when the civilized world turns their back on her. During my time in the wilds of Africa, I saw first-hand the riches provided by the pristine surroundings we passed through, and, like Kya, felt a powerful urge to preserve and protect these special places from decimation by human progress.
The natural world, while rife with inherent dangers, unlike human beings, is never intentionally deceitful.
OVER 12 MILLION COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDE NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE A NUMBER ONE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
For years, rumours of the 'Marsh Girl' have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be…
I identify strongly with the main character Julia Win, a Manhattan attorney, whose life had felt empty since returning from a tiny Burmese village in search of her missing father.
She is drawn back to Burma by questions left unanswered from her first visit. Both Julia and I were deeply affected by the actions of our fathers as young girls. In physically remote locations, we both searched for explanations that would free us from internal fears and doubts.
The sequel to the international best-selling novel The Art of Hearing Heartbeats.
Almost ten years have passed since Julia Win came back from Burma, her father’s native country. Though she is a successful Manhattan lawyer, her private life is at a crossroads; her boyfriend has recently left her and she is, despite her wealth, unhappy with her professional life. Julia is lost and exhausted.
One day, in the middle of an important business meeting, she hears a stranger’s voice in her head that causes her to leave the office without explanation. In the following days, her crisis only deepens. Not…
This story also tells of a river journey by four young orphans who in 1932 escape from a horrid Indian training school and travel for months down the Mississippi River. They head into the unknown, unprotected from the perils they encounter.
On my journey, I needed to be constantly vigilant for natural predators like lions, hippos, and crocs. These children had to be on the lookout for human predators: the search party sent looking for them, drifters, grifters, and traveling faith healers. Facing each obstacle we encountered on our trips, we managed not only to survive but actually thrive in hostile surroundings.
1932, Minnesota-the Lincoln School is a pitiless place where hundreds of Native American children, forcibly separated from their parents, are sent to be educated. It is also home to an orphan named Odie O'Banion, a lively boy whose exploits earn him the superintendent's wrath. Forced to flee, he and his brother Albert, their best friend Mose, and a brokenhearted little girl named Emmy steal away in a canoe, heading for the mighty Mississippi and a place to call their own.
Over the course of one unforgettable summer, these four orphans will fly into the unknown and cross paths with others…
Coerced by her boss and fellow rivers guides, Brenda Smith reluctantly embarks on a rafting trip through a vast Tanzanian game reserve. If she can survive twelve terrifying days on remote jungle rivers, then she must scale Africa’s tallest mountain. She comes face to face with angry hippos, roaring lions, and stealthy crocodiles, and struggles with the extremes of unbearable heat and hypothermia. Despite the harsh external threats she conquers, her greatest challenge is a profound inner journey - a courageous transformation as she uncovers the internal source of her fears and discovers the personal strength to do anything.
Becoming Fearless is an inspirational true story that showcases what is possible when you step out of your comfort zone into the wild.
In a previous career, I traveled extensively to many parts of the world. I always found new cultures, old traditions, strange languages, and exotic environments fascinating. Perhaps even more fascinating, were the expats I found who had traded in their home country for an existence far from where they were born and different from how they were reared. In many instances, I’ve attempted to incorporate—in Heinlein’s words—this stranger in a strange land motif in my work. It always seems to heighten my interest. I hope the reader’s as well.
San Diego Private Investigator, Brig Ellis, is hired by a wealthy industrialist to help him acquire the final horse in a set of twelve palomino miniatures that once belonged to the last Emperor of China. What begins as a seemingly reasonable assignment quickly morphs into something much more malevolent.
The gumshoe has to deal not only with brigands, kidnappers, and commies, but also with the beautiful, enigmatic daughter of the industrialist whose involvement raises the danger level exponentially. As complications and the body count rise, Ellis tries to make sure this ill-fated job won’t be his last.
San Diego Private Investigator, Brig Ellis, is hired by a wealthy industrialist to help him acquire the final horse in a set of twelve palomino miniatures that once belonged to the last Emperor of China. What begins as a seemingly reasonable assignment quickly morphs into something much more sinister. The intrepid gumshoe finds himself having to bargain with brigands, kibitz with kidnappers, clash with commies, and duel with a stone cold assassin incapable of feeling pain. All while navigating potentially deadly pitfalls instigated by his employer's beautiful but enigmatic daughter. Conflict and danger increase at warp speed as Ellis tries…
