Discover the gripping tale of three childhood friends who lose track of each other after their shared trauma, an extraction by mercenaries from an African civil war in 1964.

 

They finally find each other thirty years later and begin to reconnect at a Ugandan tourist lodge close to the border with Zaire.  Danny - a Canadian photojournalist, Olivia - a British psychologist and Salamu - a Belgian–Congolese nurse, each notice that they carry their childhood scars in unique ways. 

 

After only two days together, they are taken hostage by a militia group working for a ruthless coltan miner and held captive in an abandoned mission house in the Virunga Mountains. Here they meet Leo–a game warden with a mercenary past and his bodyguard Boli, an intimidating but mysterious presence.

 

Between Leo's memories of the Congo rebellion and Boli's empathic promptings, the trio's stories come out and they slowly arrive at a place of understanding and acceptance, something denied them as children.

 

When a traditional healer arrives to treat one of the hostages suffering from malaria, Salamu's dark past is immediately brought to the present and she must find the strength to tell her two friends the secret she has carried for thirty years.

 

DANCING WITH THE LEOPARD is a compelling novel that takes readers on an emotional journey with themes of found family, friendship, and resilience set against the beautiful but often deadly backdrop of the east-central African highlands. Will the trio ever be free of the leopard that stalks them, the baggage their childhood experiences left for them to carry?

 

While this gripping tale is a work of fiction, the 1964 historical section is based on a family's true story.