In vivid, irresistible narrative, Jones tells how she and her companion, a British photographer and journalist, started in England, drove to Gibraltar, ferried to North Africa, and set out alone across the Sahara Desert. We see them crossing the Senegal River into Africa; beating their way through trackless bush to Bamako, Mali's capital, and the Niger River; speeding southward through the once-prosperous Cote d'Ivoire to Ghana, through Nigeria and the Central African Republic. Along the way they battle malaria, are hounded by dangerous "Mobutu Men", and almost done in by impassable "roads". When they pause to recuperate in a posh hotel, the luxuries come between them: Jones travels on alone. From Tanzania and Zanzibar through the Corridor of Mozambique, and into South Africa, she finally makes her way to an audience with the Queen of the Lovedu.

A breakneck roller-coaster ride through an Africa crowded with obstacles, beauty, maddening corruption, and marvelous people -- almost as grand an adventure for the reader as it was for Ann Jones.