This book was excellent. It had definite page turning quality. The more I read the more I wanted to know the outcome. Characters developed alongside an intriguing plot which kept me fully interested. It all starts with a plane crash in South Africa, the passengers of which have secrets, including a nun carrying a baby. My only slight complaint is the influx of so many characters right at the beginning of the book. Once the story develops and it becomes clear who they all are, and how they all become entwined, it becomes much easier to follow. Very well drawn characters, who all have a role to play in the story. Family secrets, complex relationships, it has it all. A highly recommended read.
It's the early nineties in southern Africa. Not far from Cape Town, a small chartered plane on its way to Namibia crashes unexpectedly. On board is a nun who is hiding an undocumented baby.Today, thirty years later, two people have very different reasons for wanting to find out what happened to the child: Ruth Masisi, a prominent African judge about to be appointed to the International Criminal Court, and Arthur Coleman, a pharmaceutical industry tycoon from America, who is finalising the deal of a lifetime with China to establish southern Africa's first full-scale pharmaceutical manufacturing facility in Botswana. Werner and Ella, the descendants of the men who rescued the child, know nothing of the complex history that connects them, but when Ruth tracks them down and pleads for their help, they find themselves faced with an almost impossible situation. Will they be prepared - or able - to sift through their shared past and find the child in time?In Umbilical, Jane Kay weaves a tale of an unwelcome inheritance, one that is as inescapable as it is perilous.
Jane Kay was born in South Africa and spent her childhood in a dusty mining town in the north of the country, the first place that taught her the joy of inventing stories. Her high school and university years were spent in the Cape Town area. She graduated from Stellenbosch University and later continued her studies at the University of Johannesburg. Like her parents and many in her extended family, her early career was in teaching. She went on to do research for the management consulting industry and started writing and editing a few years later. She has lived and worked in South Africa, Canada and Russia and currently lives in northern Portugal with her nomadic husband Tom. Umbilical is her second novel.
