Acacia author Paul Bondsfield might now live in Hampshire, but his spiritual home is definitely in Africa. His love affair with the continent started started after he and a friend bought two one-way tickets to Cairo in the 90s, figuring he'd "sort it out when he got there".
Acacia – Secrets Of An African Painting, inspired by Bondsfield's own travels in southern Africa, centres around an old painting that holds clues to a great treasure of diamonds buried in the African bush, culminating in a dangerous chase.
After landing in Cairo, the pair worked their way south, but it wasn’t until they hit Zimbabwe that the story for Acacia really started to crystallise, Bondsfield tells Escapism. "As I hit Zimbabwean soil, I had an overwhelming feeling that I’d come home," he says. "The stories I’d been brought up on from my Grandma about how she and her family had grown up in southern Africa, suddenly became real. This homecoming feeling was later shared by my cousin, who had also loved listening to these stories when she was a child – it was powerful stuff."
Bondsfield also spent time at Victoria Falls before crossing overland to South Africa, through Pretoria, Johannesburg and finally to Cape Town, meeting locals, travellers and city dwellers.
It was years later when he finally decided to write the story, inspired by a painting his grandmother left him in her will, which also revealed several other paintings within the old frame years later. It's a fascinating tale of family, secrets and the scorched terrain of southern Africa.
'Acacia – Secrets Of An African Painting' by Paul Bondsfield is available as an eBook from Amazon
