Follow Me to Africa

Historical fiction inspired by the story of groundbreaking paleoanthropologist Mary Leakey, Follow Me to Africa is a sweeping, dual-timeline story of intergenerational friendship, a meditation on the beauty of the natural world, and a celebration of the women who pave the way for those to come.

Book Title: Follow Me to Africa, by Penny Haw

Genre: Biographical historical fiction

Release Date: 25th of February, 2025

Where to Buy It: 

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From the Blurb:

It's 1983 and seventeen-year-old Grace Clark has just lost her mother when she begrudgingly accompanies her estranged father to an archeological dig at Olduvai Gorge on the Serengeti plains of Tanzania. Here, seventy-year-old Mary Leakey enlists Grace to sort and pack her fifty years of work and memories.

Their interaction reminds Mary how she pursued her ambitions of becoming an archeologist in the 1930s by sneaking into lectures and working on excavations. When well-known paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey commissions her to illustrate a book, she's not at all expecting to fall in love with the older married man. Mary then follows Louis to East Africa, where she falls in love for a second time, this time with the Olduvai Gorge, where her work defines her as a great scientist and allows her to step out of Louis's shadow.

In time, Mary and Grace learn they are more alike than they thought, which eventually leads them to the secret that connects them. They also discover a mutual deep love for animals, and when Lisa, an injured cheetah, appears at camp, Mary and Grace work together to save her. On the morning Grace is due to leave, the girl—and the cheetah—are nowhere to be found, and it becomes a race against time to rescue Grace before the African bush claims her.

From the acclaimed author of The Invincible Miss Cust and The Woman at Wheel comes an adventurous, dual timeline tale that explores the consequences of our choices, wisdom that comes with retrospection, and relationships that make us who we are, based on the extraordinary real life of Mary Leakey.

About the Author:

Penny Haw was a journalist before turning to fiction. She had such fun with her “gateway novel” for children, she continued. Her adult novel, The Wilderness Between Us won the 2022 WFWA Star Award. Since then, she’s published biographical historical with Sourcebooks, including The Invincible Miss Cust (2022), The Woman at the Wheel (2023) and Follow Me to Africa (February 2025). Her stories feature remarkable women and illustrate her love for nature and animals. Penny lives in Hout Bay near Cape Town, South Africa with her husband and three dogs, all of whom are well-walked.

More About Penny Haw:

How long does it take you to write a book? How long does each stage of the process usually take?

It's taken me about a year to write each of the books I've written while working as an author full time. Before that—while writing Nicko, The Wilderness Between Us and The Invincible Miss Cust—I was a journalist and fitted in my fiction after hours. As such it took much longer. My last three books (The Woman at the Wheel, Follow Me to Africa, and The Woman and Her Stars (coming in 2026)) have been written to contract. This has meant deadlines and timelines are set with the publisher well in advance, which has meant quick turnaround. How long does each stage take? It's difficult to give exact times. I do the bulk of my research before writing and, at the same time, make notes to create a narrative arc and the plot line. However, the research is ongoing while a write—and the arc is flexible. Then, of course, once I have a rough draft, there's the self-edit, which can also involve plenty of additional and/or rewriting. So, parts of the process are interwoven and it's impossible to say how long each part takes.

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What is your favourite type of character to write?

My favourite characters are women who figure out what they hope for in life and steadfastly do what they can to realise their hopes and desires. It's why I love writing about real women from history who defied patriarchal laws, norms and etiquette to live the kinds of lives they wanted. In The Invincible Miss Cust, Aleen Cust overcame seemingly unsurmountable odds to become Britain and Ireland's first woman veterinary surgeon. In The Woman at the Wheel, Bertha Benz took matters into her own hands to show the world her and her husband, Carl's extraordinary invention, the Benz Motorwagen. In Follow Me to Africa, Mary Leakey becomes one of the world's best known paleoanthropologists, despite only having recieved about two years of formal education. These women inspire me and I love writing about them.

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Do you mine your own life for ideas, settings and/or characters? 

It's hard to imagine any author writing without mining their own lives ideas, settings and characters. One of the things you'll always see in my books, which is very close to my own life, is my love of animals and the outdoors. It's one of the things that appealed to me about Mary Leakey's life. She was a great animal lover. You'll meet all her dogs in Follow Me to Africa and a cheetah called Lisa, who is also based a real cheetah who spent sometime in camp with Mary. I grew up on a farm in Africa and love the countryside and bush. It gave me great joy to write about Tanzania where Mary spent much of her life. She and I shared an appreciation of the solitude and wonder of nature. 

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What is something you wish you had known earlier on in your writing career?

Writing has been my career but one thing writing fiction has reminded me is how playful writing can be. I'd forgotten that while working as a journalist. As a child, I told myself long, complicated stories. It was a form of play. I'd forgotten how much joy it gave me until I began writing fiction.

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What do you do when you find yourself in a bit of a writing rut? Is there any strategy you find works for you to help the words start flowing again? 

I picture someone reading something I've written or me telling someone a story. I imagine their expressions. Am I holding their attention? Are they interested in what I have to say? How can I change things to ramp up the entertainment? The strategy works for me.

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What is your favourite writing resource?

Other fiction. I am among those who believe reading begets writing. I read as much other fiction as I can to inspire and encourage my own writing.

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What authors or books inspire you the most?

Of course I read other historical fiction, like the work of Marie Benedict, Kate Quinn, Fiona Valpy, Allison Pataki, Shelley Noble, and Elizabeth Wein. I also love literary fiction from authors like Elizabeth Strout and Ann Patchett. Recently, I've been rereading Jane Austen because of the setting and period of my next book.

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What's next for your writing?

My next work of historical biographical fiction will be published in 2026. It's about the world's first paid woman astronomer, Caroline Herschel.