Back to the Bush

Back to the Bush is the tale of a second year at Sasekile Private Game Reserve for brothers Angus and Hugh MacNaughton. Angus’s weekly journal recounts a positive beginning to the year: fastidious Hugh is in love, running his own camp and on the verge of a promotion. Angus is involved in a romantic liaison, which takes the edge off his customary cynicism, and for the first time in their adult lives, a positive fraternal bond exists between them. Inevitably, reality comes calling. Angus’s love affair ends, Hugh becomes stratospherically arrogant, and Julia, the MacNaughtons’ sister, starts dating Angus’s nemesis – Alistair ‘the Legend’ Jones. Then there are a series of further ‘hiccups’, from demanding lodge guests and marauding monkeys, to a run-in with a blind-drunk head chef, a winter drought, a rogue elephant and the resignation of the sterling head ranger. You are guaranteed to be entertained by the hilarious antics and hard knocks as well as the fierce beauty of the African landscape.

James Hendry has spent 20 years working at and around exclusive lodges in southern Africa as a safari guide, trainer, head ranger, manager, researcher and entertainer. He also spent six years hosting and presenting safaris for NatGeo Wild, WildEarth and SafariLive. He is currently a private safari guide, filmmaker and wildlife photographer. His debut novel, A Year in the Wild: A Riotous Novel (2011), featured the MacNaughton brothers at the Sasekile Private Game Reserve and was followed by Back to the Bush: Another Year in the Wild (2013). His third novel, Reggie & Me (2020), was a charming coming-of-age tale.

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