An eco-romance set against the backdrop of fracking in the Karoo is making waves in the United States and the writer will soon have a second novel – originally rejected – on the shelves.
A Fractured Land by Melissa Volker is a romantic suspense novel set in Graaff-Reinet, Nieu Bethesda and Austin, Texas.
Writer and blogger Volker is based in Cape Town but grew up in Port Elizabeth, attending Collegiate Girls High School before working as a beauty therapist in her home salon in Mill Park.“We moved away in 2010 for my husband’s career and in that time I decided to follow my dream and study creative writing,” Volker said.
After completing a few online courses, she got down to the business of writing a novel.
“My first novel was rejected by what felt like all the publishers in the world. So I wrote another one, A Fractured Land."
Volker was offered a contract for A Fractured Land by a small American-based press at the end of 2016.
“It's a romantic suspense novel, set in Graaff-Reinet, Nieu Bethesda and Austin, Texas, featuring Lexi, a financially bereft guest house manager, who decides to host Carter, a taciturn Texan geologist.
“He, to the community's ire, has an exploratory fracking license. When he digs up more than shale gas in the desert, it's not only the greenies who want him (and anyone who sides with him) gone.”
This was when she decided to revisit her first attempt, which had been rejected by publishers.
“In 2017, when A Fractured Land was in the pre-publication editing process, I rewrote the first novel and entered it in the Romance Writers of South Africa's inaugural Strelitzia Award,” Volker said.
The earlier book, Shadow Flicker, won the Strelitzia Award for the most promising manuscript of the year by an unpublished author and now it too will be released.
“I was delighted when it won! I have subsequently signed a contract for publication with Johannesburg publisher, Clockwork Books.
“A Fractured Land was released in the United States on April 1 and I am very excited about the feedback I have received from readers so far.”
Besides writing environmental love stories, Volker is also a freelance surf writer, and lives in Cape Town with her husband and two daughters.
“A Fractured Land is on sale at Fogarty’s Bookshop at Walmer Park.