The Africa House

In the fast decades of the British Empire, Stewart Gore-Browne built himself a feudal paradise in Northern Rhodesia, a sprawling country estate modelled on the finest homes of England, complete with uniformed servants, daily muster parades, rose gardens and lavish dinners finished off with vintage port in the library. He wanted to share it with the love of his life, the beautiful, unconventional Ethel Locke King, one of the first women to drive and fly. She, however, was nearly twenty years his senior, married and his aunt. Lorna, the only other woman he had ever really cared for, had married another many years earlier. Then he met Lorna's orphaned daughter, so like her mother that he thought he had seen a ghost. It seemed he had found companionship and maybe love - but the Africa House was his dream and it would be a hard one to share. Christina Lamb's bestselling account of this fascinating and complicated man - a colonialist who beat his servants yet supported independence, a stiff Englishman with deep passions - is a masterpiece of biographical story-telling. It is a tale of fantasies made real, tragedy endured and lifelong love. 'An amazing story of high hopes, lost love and ruined lives' Sunday Times 'Generous coverage of this long, complex and contradictory life... He comes across as a thoroughly decent chap - a ramrod straight Edwardian military man by training and inclination with a fine streak of eccentricity and an admirable capacity to re-invent himself' Penelope Lively, Daily Telegraph