Readership: Women's fiction

Genre: Romance/adventure

Manuscript length 65,000 words

Abbey Harris is a successful, career woman and enjoys a comfortable life style in the leafy Cheshire suburbs. One Sunday, she spots an advertisement for volunteers to work on an ecological project in the north of Botswana, and impulsively applies.

Abbey arrives in Kasane, ready to complete a one year contract with an international charity, working in the forestry unit. A few months into her contract, Abbey meets Darren, a diamond prospector, falls in love, and marries. As Abbey settles into her new life, she has to battle her way through black magic, arson and a poisonous snake lurking under her bed. To add to her problems she also has to contend with Anna, a stunning South African, who is determined to rekindle a relationship with Darren, undermining Abbey’s confidence whenever she can.

Abbey has two colleagues, Richard and Phil, who have both run away from responsibilities and failures at home in the England. Richard is an emotionally dysfunctional man, who in a bid to dominate others, treats people, especially women, with disdain and suspicion. His attitude towards the Batswana women whom he uses for his personal gratification, demonstrates an inability to interact with the opposite sex in a meaningful way. Richard’s growing frustration of his two colleagues result in him devising a plot which he thinks will eliminate both of them out of his life forever.

Just as Abbey thinks she is settled and her problems are behind her, the sudden death of her mother forces her to temporarily return to the UK. Here, she has to not only reassess her feelings, and come to terms the loss of her mother, but finds herself on a collision course with her estranged father. The rift between father and daughter is not just one of geographical distance, but deep rooted in an upbringing Abbey struggles to come to terms with.

Local characters are also important to the story, their individual accounts intertwined around the two main characters. Each character is based on a person who was/is known by the author. Names and other personal details have been changed; however, both Botswana and the Batswana have been portrayed as a proud, gracious race of people who readily accept newcomers into their hearts and communities. The story takes the reader from Gaborone in the south, to Kasane in the north.

The Perils of Skinny-dipping is a love story which documents one woman’s desire to find inner peace and create a meaningful life which has so far eluded her. It also describes the beauty and uniqueness of a country which enjoys both political and economic stability, and, reflects on its achievements as well as its problems. It observes the interaction between rich and poor, black and white, as they strive to live in harmony side by side