After two decades as a journalist Sharon decided to save herself from complete cynicism and write poems instead. Then she started travelling the world with her data-liberating husband and young daughter. After twenty-three countries, she’s hung her hat in Tbilisi, Georgia, for a while. But it’s the South African Lowveld - where she’s known to wrangle cobras, monkeys and porcupines - that she still calls home.
My mother, bless her heart, is a hopeless romantic. When I say I grew up surrounded by books, they were, to be honest, shelves upon shelves of Silhouette Romance and Mills & Boon novels. So it was no surprise when Mom visited me in Tbilisi that, of all the books she could buy about the history of Georgia, she snapped up Meg Clothier’s "The Girl King" about Georgia’s formidable 12th Century queen...
Ok. Let’s be clear. The myth about the Khevsurs being a lost tribe of Crusaders is utter rubbish. And, frankly, the Khevsurs don’t need it. High up in the Caucasus, bordering Russia’s Chechnyan region and cut off by snow half the year, the Khevsureti area has enough real history and lore to gobsmack any visitor.
