Warrior King

by Wilbur Smith, Tom Harper Book 9 in the Birds of Prey Sequence series.

First published 2024

Amazon

4.4(8,017)

Southern Africa, 1820. Ann Waite rescues a child from a wrecked boat, while the scarred survivor Ralph Courtney disappears. Two years later hardship forces Ann and the boy back into Ralph’s company as he searches for the harbour known as Nativity Bay. The settlers arrive during the formation of new colonial communities at the Cape and the rapid expansion of Shaka’s military kingdom farther east.

The settlers find themselves on the frontier of Shaka’s expanding Zulu kingdom. Ralph must negotiate with the king while confronting the history that led to his imprisonment and the danger created by regional war and forced migration. Forced migration, shipwreck and negotiation place Ralph’s private search for a harbour inside the wider upheaval remembered as the Mfecane.