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Lemur'sTale: It Turns on a Leaf
South Africa teeters on the brink of civil war or collapse, so Lawrence decides to leave the country together with his loving wife Dianne and their two young children.
“How long do I have to pack?” is her only question.
Faced with few options for legal emigration, Lawrence and Dianne buy a yacht intending to sail away from their problems and search for a new home and a fresh start.
They ignore, with tragic results, the boat’s notorious reputation and the fact that it was cursed by a Zulu witchdoctor. The family, tested by adversity, pulls together to confound their critics and survive disasters, including a trial by necklacing. Together they overcome hypocrisy, racism, superstition and their own ignorance.
When Lawrence is attacked by a predatory pervert after he accepts an opportunity to gain sailing experience, he retaliates and suffers a crisis of conscience.
The family sets sail with the wizard’s curse as a deadly passenger and with their enemy, bent on revenge, dogging their progress. They land in magical Madagascar, where they swim with sacred sharks, visit God’s Upside Down Trees, and are transported to Paradise. They meet The Gold Magnet and encounter a curious Lemur. Lawrence uncovers the source of a mysterious leaf that fuels an orgy of greed and destruction, which results in the loss of everything they own.
On a lonely beach, beaten and exhausted, Lawrence gives up but a Frog comes to his rescue. After experiencing heart-breaking generosity from paupers, Lawrence rediscovers the most valuable thing he possesses.
The family is offered a place in Paradise, but pay a terrible price. Lemur's Tale is based upon actual events in the author’s life.
“How long do I have to pack?” is her only question.
Faced with few options for legal emigration, Lawrence and Dianne buy a yacht intending to sail away from their problems and search for a new home and a fresh start.
They ignore, with tragic results, the boat’s notorious reputation and the fact that it was cursed by a Zulu witchdoctor. The family, tested by adversity, pulls together to confound their critics and survive disasters, including a trial by necklacing. Together they overcome hypocrisy, racism, superstition and their own ignorance.
When Lawrence is attacked by a predatory pervert after he accepts an opportunity to gain sailing experience, he retaliates and suffers a crisis of conscience.
The family sets sail with the wizard’s curse as a deadly passenger and with their enemy, bent on revenge, dogging their progress. They land in magical Madagascar, where they swim with sacred sharks, visit God’s Upside Down Trees, and are transported to Paradise. They meet The Gold Magnet and encounter a curious Lemur. Lawrence uncovers the source of a mysterious leaf that fuels an orgy of greed and destruction, which results in the loss of everything they own.
On a lonely beach, beaten and exhausted, Lawrence gives up but a Frog comes to his rescue. After experiencing heart-breaking generosity from paupers, Lawrence rediscovers the most valuable thing he possesses.
The family is offered a place in Paradise, but pay a terrible price. Lemur's Tale is based upon actual events in the author’s life.
230 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 2013
About the author
Don Darkes
3 books1 followerHi! call me Don
I was born as Lawrence Huntingdon-Rusch, adopted and renamed Lawrence de Robillard. I was reborn on June 6th 2012 as the Writer Don Darkes. My choice of pseudonym is due partly to the fact that I am penning a Biographical Memoir entitled My Life of Crime, the memoir of an intriguing man, the "real" Don Darkes who was marked with this identity at birth to protect a secret and the fact that like him, my given name also conceals my true heritage. The irony in this tickles my love of the bizarre and my sense of the ridiculous. Of course it makes marketing sense too since any of my "real" names would fill a book cover and leave no space for the Title!
Following a number of exciting and successful careers in Construction, Manufacturing, Information Technology, Franchising and Entrepreneurship I find myself combining them all into my new role as an Author.
I repudiated my Psychology degree in the mid-seventies prior to serving my mandatory National Military Service in a top-secret Electronic Warfare unit, clandestinely deployed in Rhodesia, (Now Zimbabwe) a horrendous episode, for which I later received a medal. (novel in progress)
During the eighties, at the height of apartheid, together with (then) illegal “black” partners I built a successful manufacturing company. Following a series of traumatic events I sold it and opted-out to buy the yacht upon which I was shipwrecked together with my wife, our five year old son and four year old daughter. (Non fiction novel, 6692 Pisces the Sailfish). After returning destitute to South Africa I rode a ripple in the dot.com wave and sold my Internet start-up in order to distribute organic chocolate and to research a challenging historical novel exploring an intriguing link between the Jewish Holocaust and Madagascar. (Novel in progress– Bread from Air)
Currently, together with my wife, son and two daughters we are building another yacht and living aboard it whilst I work on several books with a common denominator; my love of history and my belief that fact is stranger and far more interesting than fiction.
I was born as Lawrence Huntingdon-Rusch, adopted and renamed Lawrence de Robillard. I was reborn on June 6th 2012 as the Writer Don Darkes. My choice of pseudonym is due partly to the fact that I am penning a Biographical Memoir entitled My Life of Crime, the memoir of an intriguing man, the "real" Don Darkes who was marked with this identity at birth to protect a secret and the fact that like him, my given name also conceals my true heritage. The irony in this tickles my love of the bizarre and my sense of the ridiculous. Of course it makes marketing sense too since any of my "real" names would fill a book cover and leave no space for the Title!
Following a number of exciting and successful careers in Construction, Manufacturing, Information Technology, Franchising and Entrepreneurship I find myself combining them all into my new role as an Author.
I repudiated my Psychology degree in the mid-seventies prior to serving my mandatory National Military Service in a top-secret Electronic Warfare unit, clandestinely deployed in Rhodesia, (Now Zimbabwe) a horrendous episode, for which I later received a medal. (novel in progress)
During the eighties, at the height of apartheid, together with (then) illegal “black” partners I built a successful manufacturing company. Following a series of traumatic events I sold it and opted-out to buy the yacht upon which I was shipwrecked together with my wife, our five year old son and four year old daughter. (Non fiction novel, 6692 Pisces the Sailfish). After returning destitute to South Africa I rode a ripple in the dot.com wave and sold my Internet start-up in order to distribute organic chocolate and to research a challenging historical novel exploring an intriguing link between the Jewish Holocaust and Madagascar. (Novel in progress– Bread from Air)
Currently, together with my wife, son and two daughters we are building another yacht and living aboard it whilst I work on several books with a common denominator; my love of history and my belief that fact is stranger and far more interesting than fiction.
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