Reviewed by Anne Boling for Readers' Favorite

Patrick and Margaret are a young white newlywed couple planning to spend a year living in Kenya. They expect life in Nairobi to be an adventure. He is a doctor, she is a photographer. Early in the book they meet a British couple that invites them on an outing to climb Mount Kenya.

I must throw in a few comments before I continue with the summary. Has Patrick lost his mind? Margaret has no experience climbing mountains and I don’t think he had much either. He doesn’t ask her, “Honey would you like to climb Mount Kenya?” He tells her, “We are going to climb Mount Kenya.” Why would he place his dearly loved wife in such danger. Ok back to the summary.

Life in Nairobi is very different than Margaret ever expected. The people have a very different view of women. She knows nothing of the culture and on more than one occasion it causes trouble. She also discovers how little she knew about her husband.
Their climbing partners/landlords are Arthur and Diane, plus another couple. Arthur has shown Margaret a lot of attention. He’s obviously attracted to her. Diane and Patrick both notice.

The climb is gruesome. Margaret slows everyone down. She is not athletic. She has no climbing experience. In one scene Margaret steps in fire ants. They stay in a cabin with rats. One runs across Margaret’s hand during the night. She is frightened. Arthur reaches for her hand and holds it all night long. He is still holding it the next morning when Patrick and Diane awake. They see it and are not happy or understanding.

During a fit of jealousy Diane detaches herself from the rope and ventures ahead of the group. She ends up slipping and sliding down the mountain to certain death. Patrick places blame on Margaret. Why you ask,because Arthur has been paying a lot of attention to her and she didn’t stop him.

The story is told through Margaret’s perspective. As a photojournalist she has an eye for detail and beauty. That’s also how she ended up stepping in the fire ants. She takes photos of everything much to her husband’s displeasure. He feels she s missing out.

This story is told in a quiet voice yet it stirs deep emotions. I did not realize how deep until I started writing this review. I do not like Patrick, he’s egotistical. Margaret was too mousy. I wanted to scream at her. Just say no. “No I don’t want to climb that stupid mountain.” It was obvious she didn’t want to. She is rather naïve. The voice of this book matched Margaret’s voice: quiet, naïve, and at times rather dull. I didn’t care for Diane either. She was extremely arrogant. Now that I think about it…I didn’t like anyone in this book. I’m still trying to figure out why Patrick and Margaret married. They seem ill suited and not in love or even to like each other.