Verdict: Rollins’ writing keeps the book moving through the many personal stories at a quick pace – jumping from one character’s point of view to another – letting the reader not only experience, but feel, what is happening.

The act of a social outcast releasing a wanderer from her bonds begins a story that soon intertwines the lives of many with the history of Africa and Western exploration. The time is approximately 12,000 BC when Naaba and Asha meet and start their unconventional journey.

Naaba, the bushman reborn of the she-leopard, and Asha, the water-diviner, follow the river in search of something better. Their first encounter leads them to a shaman who enslaves trespassers, which in turn throws them into the politics and destruction of two leaders with dreams of ruling the land – the Black Rhino from the north and the She-Eagle from the south. Along the way they pick up a make-shift band of individuals all trying to escape the pain and memories of their past.

Rollins’ writing keeps the book moving through the many personal stories at a quick pace – jumping from one character’s point of view  to another – letting the reader not only experience, but feel, what is happening. Her descriptions enable you to enter into the characters’ world – spending the dark night on the African savannah; escaping a violent political rebellion; flailing in the middle of the ocean on the wild waves of a hurricane; or experiencing the taste of final defeat along with true love and acceptance.

Along the way you are taken on a journey of the earliest explorers from the coast of Africa all the way to the Gulf of Mexico as they search for the place that will welcome and accept them, even with all their faults.

A very personal, engrossing story of change as it happens to a society, to a group and within a person.

Reviewed by Melissa Allen for IndieReader