Book excerpt: The much-loved travel writer recalls a 1950s childhood in post-war London's every shade of grey and the splendours of Africa as, with her glamorous mother and father, Susie boards a ship bound for exotic, technicolor Kenya. Then its final decade as a colony, Kenya was peopled with larger-than-life characters who had helped to forge its identity. There, with the threats of the Mau Mau uprising ever-present, Susie's life disintegrates at break-neck speed into a web of jealousy, rejection and casual cruelty. Each time it seems things cannot get any worse, they do as Susie lifts the lid on her own, often shocking, behavior in her quest to protect herself and those she loves. Rebellious, lonely and self-destructive, it is a small grey pony named Cinderella who saves Susie from herself and brings her the love she craves. Readers will shed a tear at her losses and laugh at her predicaments in this sometimes hilarious, often heartbreaking, true story that gives a moving and often shocking insight in to the earlier life of the bestselling travel writer famed for her humor and her honesty. "A Child Called 'It' meets Out of Africa in this stunning memoir of a woman's 1950s childhood in Kenya. Filled with candid humor and insights, this authentic tale captures one woman's incredible coming-of-age journey." BookBub