Olive the Lionheart, Brad Ricca
Olive the Lionheart, Brad Ricca
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Olive the Lionheart
Lost Love, Imperial Spies, and One Woman's Journey into the Heart of Africa

Author: Brad Ricca

Narrator: Billie Fulford-Brown, Brad Ricca

Unabridged: 11 hr 31 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 08/11/2020


Synopsis

"Narrator Billie Fulford-Brown's delightful British accent adds realism to the true story of Olive MacLeod, a Victorian-era woman who followed her heart to Africa." -- AudioFile Magazine, Earphones Award winner

From the Edgar-nominated author of the bestselling Mrs. Sherlock Holmes comes the true story of a woman's quest to Africa in the 1900s to find her missing fiancé, and the adventure that ensues.

In 1910, Olive MacLeod, a thirty-year-old, redheaded Scottish aristocrat, received word that her fiancé, the famous naturalist Boyd Alexander, was missing in Africa.

So she went to find him.

Olive the Lionheart is the thrilling true story of her astonishing journey. In jungles, swamps, cities, and deserts, Olive and her two companions, the Talbots, come face-to-face with cobras and crocodiles, wise native chiefs, a murderous leopard cult, a haunted forest, and even two adorable lion cubs that she adopts as her own. Making her way in a pair of ill-fitting boots, Olive awakens to the many forces around her, from shadowy colonial powers to an invisible Islamic warlord who may hold the key to Boyd’s disappearance. As these secrets begin to unravel, all of Olive’s assumptions prove wrong and she is forced to confront the darkest, most shocking secret of all: why she really came to Africa in the first place.

Drawing on Olive’s own letters and secret diaries, Olive the Lionheart is a love story that defies all boundaries, set against the backdrop of a beautiful, unconquerable Africa.

Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press

"Brad Ricca’s Olive MacLeod is my favorite sort of woman from history—bold and unconventional, utterly unsinkable—and her story is so full of adventure and acts of courage, it’s hard to believe she actually lived. And yet she did! Brad Ricca has found a heroine for the ages, and written her tale with a winning combination of accuracy and imagination." — Paula McLain, author of Love and Ruin and The Paris Wife

About Brad Ricca

BRAD RICCA earned his Ph.D. in English from Case Western Reserve University where he currently teaches. The author of Super Boys, he has spoken on comics at various schools and museums, and he has been interviewed about comics topics by The New York Daily News, The Wall Street Journal, and All Things Considered on NPR. His film Last Son won a 2010 Silver Ace Award at the Las Vegas International Film Festival. He lives in Cleveland, Ohio.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Kate

3.5 / 5.0 stars Biographer Brad Ricca has a penchant for discovering and sharing long forgotten rich historical stories which are as personal as they are informative. His research and footnoting in this particualr story is herculean. These citations provide the gravitas of this tremendous and epic st......more