Bøker av Rodney St Clair Ballenden

Arnau, an older man, embedded in the fantasy of the romantic poet, springs the barrier of reality to engage with Estel, a younger woman, struggling to overcome the strictures of her society and culture. 70-30 tells the story of their two dreams; the one of birth and the other of death. Estel, believes the purpose of life is to live for the love of a mother, a child, and to secure their material needs for the benefit of the greater society and environment into which they were born. Romance is for pretenders. Those who deny the reality of their circumstances are the pretenders and that, Arnau, the old man, as she calls him, is just a dreamer without direction. He tricks himself and not her.And then, one day she defends him.This triggers a series of meetings between Estel and the old man that spurs her lover, Digger, a municipal worker, to action. Using Arnau as the excuse, Digger embarks on a mission to exclude all foreigners from the village and from their cultural traditions. The nit de Sant Joan, celebrating the gift of fire, becomes a key festival of this struggle. Only the intervention of her mother persuades Estela to acknowledge the danger of her liaison with an older man, and she agrees to obey the rules of society, and distance herself from any further acquaintances with him.Arnau, disguised as a simpleton, carries his burning log down the mountain, and joins in the festivities of the nit de Sant Joan. When he dances around the falla mayor in the village square, Estel sees an old man dancing with the devil, and joins Digger to throw him out of the village, and out of their lives, forever.They ransack Arnau's room, and find his notebook, the final piece of evidence needed to evict him. But, when Estel reads certain passages, she understands what he had tried to share with her, and goes in search of him to walk once more through the pathless woods.

Born in 1980, ten years after the revolution, Azeha, now sixteen years of age, rebels against the restrictions of Sharia law and the teachings of her grandfather. She explodes into a life outside of her traditional family values and when placed under house arrest escapes into the safe custody of a local women's political organization. She meets and falls in love with an American soldier operating clandestinely in her home town of Asadiyeh and elopes with him back to the United States. A child is born, but is mentally ill, and her dream becomes a nightmare. Her privileged western life style deteriorates and she finds herself estranged from her husband and on the streets. Constantly on the move a private detective eventually tracks her down. Released from prison on a technicality, she returns to the small coastal town where her baby lies buried, in search of peace and the love she imagined as a young woman. In Child of Destiny Azeha mirrors the restlessness character in all of us, innocent yet flawed, a soul in search of a lost identity.

Caruna diTenchi a wealthy Italian, contracts a tough bush ranger to lead a party of three on a fun adventure into the North Western Game Parks of South Africa. What Caruna does not tell James, the ranger, is the identity of the third person. Grace is the key to Caruna's quest. She agrees to the deal, but as Caruna's motives become apparent she allies herself with James and they plan their escape. However, Caruna outmanoeuvres them and redirects their route into the Kalahari Desert. Grace is intrigued by Caruna's wit and infatuating questions regarding sexuality and love. The vein is of light hearted romance and Grace realigns herself to the new adventure. James battles to lead the group in such a hostile environment and with no preplanning, no backup and without the proper equipment things start to go wrong. The stakes are high and when the vehicle breaks down James has only one choice to redeem his honor

When Loren Packard stalks her first Bighorn ram she feels the primitive forces of the hunter stirring in her. She craves the rush of power. The challenge of meeting an adversary eye to eye, each magnificent in their own way, and yet each holding the darker side of deceit inherent in all conquests of superiority of the one over the other.The fact that Loren is a novice makes the challenge even greater. She hires a professional guide to train her and works hard to meet his demanding levels of proficiency. All the while hiding her agenda from her husband and two children. However, her son, Anthony grows suspicious. Always the interrogator and despite his tender twelve years of age, not the one for allowing sleeping dogs to lie.When the principal of her children's primary school calls a meeting to discuss the insidious drug problem creeping into their midst and the related separation of parent to child, Loren rises to the occasion. She draws a parallel to the horrors of terrorism, the bully, and the growing threat of drug peddling at school, to the skills learned as a hunter and the challenges facing a child growing up in the modern world. Her opinion stuns Larry, her husband, and with Anthony nipping away at her defences, Loren tells them of her mission to hunt all four Bighorn rams in their own environments.The money to pay for this mission becomes Larry's overriding concern and he vows to stop his wife. He knows that the money she needs for her hunt can only be taken from their family policies and, since his income has slowed, he feels compelled to intervene. Loren disregards the pleas of her husband and family in favour of the glitz and the glamour of the Bighorn hunting fraternity. She buys into the security of a professional Outfitting company, Extreme Hunt Adventures, and as she drifts from the truth of an inner calling, so the forces stacked against her mount up. Where once she had vowed to fight for those she called 'mine' even if that be not so truthful, she now stares defeat in the eye. Her mission seems doomed. Her well laid plans flounder against the brick wall of Wildlife administration details and the cruellest card of them all; fate. Her only option to admit defeat and crawl back home.Only then does her Red Indian friend, Stand Open, reveal his true worth. A worth which Loren had cast aside, but which now offers her a hand to go into those mountains and fetch her ram.And she does. She conquers the terrain and the elements. She meets the challenges of the hunt and brings out her trophy. But at what cost? And can she bare the consequences of her victory?

In !975 a rebel ZAR force invades South Africa, crossing the Tugela River to carve out a chunk of land and proclaim an independent state for the Afrikaner people. The Afrikaner leadership is split by internal wrangling between detente and warfare threatening the stability of the newly proclaimed state. Brik Taljaard joins the rebel forces and in so doing chooses freedom and independence over family. This decision destroys his family and costs him the only woman he ever loved, but connects him to a friendship born out of the very essence of the conflict; hatred and mistrust.

Vivacious and attractive Beryl holds centre stage amongst her group of friends, never having to arbitrate, swanning to the fore on the breeze of her sunny nature. The group meet in the local pub, Drifters, to celebrate the promise of a timeless youth.Set against the backdrop of the "Phoney War" in 1939, Beryl suffers the loss of her lovers, even Scully, her hut mate, taken from her one by one as the German advance engulfs their lives. And as England withdraws, battered and beaten from Dunkirk, to stand alone in her darkest hour, Beryl makes a desperate decision, naming her first child in memory of her most passionate secret, the fighter pilot she imagined she could never lose.The story of 1939 moves through the relationships between the various couples in the group. Whatever the circumstances and in whatever time frame they met and befriended each other, they are driven by the same force, part evil, part good, of an insidious fear sowing chaos between heart and mind. When Beryl toasts "To love; that we may always find it again," on Christmas Eve, she is in fact reaching for the romantic life drifting from her and all mankind.Alas! The mania of war intervenes. Beryl's search flounders in the bloated corpse of an airman lost over the English Channel. Her lies multiply and her phoney character overtakes her once vivacious nature stringing her to the hanging post of a future she once claimed "as mine; everything's mine."And if the art of life is to survive, Beryl now makes her final decision; to go, far, far away with the last man standing, holding back on passion for the lessor rules of a love that someone kind and gentle will do...what else?

Denied the promise of love's fulfilment, Haley sinks into a life of loneliness and despair. Then nature intervenes. A baboon invades her house and a young gardener her imagination. Her decision to forsake her wealthy lifestyle gives her the chance to recoup what she once thought was lost.