A Change In Altitude by Anita Shreve (Little Brown hardback, £16.99) (From York Press)

A Change In Altitude by Anita Shreve (Little Brown hardback, £16.99)

10:47am Saturday 28th November 2009 in

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NEWLYWED Americans Margaret and Patrick up sticks from the United States, where he is a doctor, for an adventurous couple of years living in Kenya.

Patrick gets a job at Nairobi Hospital. Margaret, a photojournalist, kicks her heels, becomes bored, and insists the couple move into a plush cottage in the grounds of a large home owned by British expats Arthur and Diana.

They live an elite existence, far removed from the Nairobi slums and the poverty that is all around them.

Then Arthur and Diana invite them on an expedition, to climb Mount Kenya. Tragedy strikes, Diana falls to her death – and in their different ways Patrick and Margaret both feel Margaret is somehow responsible.

Their shiny new marriage is cracked and damaged – and gradually, the split grows wider. And then Margaret gets a job with a Kenyan newspaper and begins to find out about the real Kenya.

A Change In Altitude is a gripping account of a loving yet doomed marriage – and, at the same time, a magnificent portrait of a privileged white woman coming to know and love the strange new country in which she finds herself.