Synopsis: An impetuous heart can be deadly for romantic dreamer, Crystal Laine. With her head in the clouds, Crystal, a young English woman, falls wildly in love with Jax Raád, a Lebanese businessman, in London seeking investment capital for a diamond mining venture in Sierra Leone. Captivated by this exotic man, Crystal willingly trades her uneventful, tour-guide existence for the promise of adventure and travels to Freetown.
As her love for this man and this foreign land become inexorably tangled, she discovers Jax has a high-voltage temper along with addictions: drugs and gambling. Still her life in Sierra Leone completely `rules her heart, one moment stunning her with unimaginable beauty, the next horrifying her with relentless cruelty.
Jax successfully gathers the capital for his mining expedition and the two head off to Mendeland. But nothing in her tour-guide experience could have prepared Crystal for living in the bush. In a land of voodoo, devils and secret societies, she's cursed by a jealous female river spirit, believed to be the keeper of stones. To appease this river spirit and find diamonds, Crystal must go through a ritual called, "sacrificing your heart," that changes her life forever. The river does spit out a stone, The Angel Stone, worth millions and sure to be another curse. Jax warns not to tell anybody about the rare, fancy diamond as they'll be hunted down and killed for it.
The country is in a political upheaval as the first democratic election in thirty years is about to take place. Rebel factions oppose a civilian government, boycotting the elections by burning those alive who oppose their tyranny. Her lover's betrayals have put both their lives in jeopardy. She knows she must leave, but before she does, she must find a way to save the man responsible for bringing her to this magical, albeit dangerous land. Her way of life in Africa, the friends she's made, the lessons she's learned, and her own internal awakenings all come together to help her with the biggest challenge of her life.
As for The Angel Stone...? Diamond smugglers are shot, common knowledge. Rebels are about to enter the city. An air, sea and land lock is enforced. Time has run out. With no way to leave the country, Crystal must decide what action to take, but only The Angel Stone can help her now.
Autobiography: Accomplished author and screenwriter, Marie Reindorp has many stories to tell. She is an English native who traveled extensively as a tour guide. Many of her stories are based on her adventures and experiences, of her travels and the places she's lived in. She divides her time between living in California and Arizona.
