The Other Einstein meets Out of Africa, with a side of Indiana Jones. WHERE THE DUST SETTLES tells the remarkable untold story of Mary Leakey and her challenging journey to becoming an archaeologist, despite no formal education on the subject, who follows her husband, famous paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey, to East Africa, where her work will define her as one of the world's most distinguished archeologists.
 
1935, London: Mary Nicol is 12 when she decides to become an archaeologist. She doesn’t have the academic record to get into university so she sneaks into lectures at colleges and museums and finds work on excavations, finally entering the field as an illustrator, when Louis Leakey—credited with discovering that the cradle of humankind started in Africa a million years before previously thought—commissions her to illustrate a book, and they fall in love and get married. Although that love is not to last, that relationship brings her to the Olduvai Gorge in the Serengeti in 1935, where her work will define her as one of the world’s most distinguished paleoanthropologists.
1983, Tanzania: In 1983, Mary’s time in the Olduvai Gorge is drawing to an end. She enlists Anne, the 17-year-old daughter of a colleague, to help pack up her 50 years of memories and they form a bond, as Mary catches glimpses of her younger self in the unhappy girl, who shares her love of animals. On the morning Anne is due to leave, the girl is nowhere to be found, and it's a race against time for Mary and the rest of the crew to find Anne before the African bush claims her.
 
Contributor Bio(s)
 
PENNY HAW worked as a journalist and columnist for more than three decades, writing for many leading South African newspapers and magazines before yielding to a lifelong yearning to create fiction. Her stories feature remarkable women, illustrate her love for nature, and explore the interconnectedness of all living things. She is the author of The Invincible Miss Cust and The Woman at the Wheel and lives near Cape Town with her husband and three dogs, all of whom are well walked.