In the African highlands, three unlikely allies--Echo, a water buffalo chosen by the Great Spirit to lead; Stride, a cheetah hiding a deadly secret; and Tailgrabber, a young hyena desperate to find peace--must hold their own against the coming storm.

"When Cathleen Harrington leaves her home in Ireland in 1919 to travel to South Africa, she knows that she does not love the man she is to marry there --her fiance Edward, whom she has not seen for five years. Isolated and estranged in a small town in the harsh Karoo desert, her only real companions are her diary and her housemaid, and later the housemaid's daughter, Ada. When Ada is born, Cathleen recognizes in her someone she can love and respond...