Heartshake by Jacqueline Wiles
Heartshake (Debut Novel, Eastern Cape Apartheid-Era Fiction)
A Farmer's Wife, a Forbidden Bond and the Shadow of Late Apartheid in the Eastern Cape
Bibliographic Specifications
- Title: Heartshake
- Author: Jacqueline Wiles
- Publisher: Chrysalis Books, Johannesburg, South Africa
- Publication Date: 2025
- ISBN-13: 9781037081439
- Binding: Publisher's illustrated card wrappers, perfect bound.
- Physical Format: Large softcover (trade paperback) format.
- Language: English
Official Condition Report
- The Book: Very Good Plus (VG+)
- Exterior / Wraps: Printed card wrappers with a sunset, windmill and kudu image. The spine is dark, with a visible vertical crease line near the foot, below the author name. There is slight wear along the rear spine hinge edge. Corners and edges are clean, as are the fore-edge, head and tail.
- Interior: The text block is clean and bright, with no markings or foxing, and the binding is tight. There are no inscriptions, stamps or bookplates.
- The Dust Jacket: Not Applicable (As Issued)
Synopsis & Historical Value
Published in Johannesburg in 2025 by Chrysalis Books, Heartshake is a novel set in the Eastern Cape of the 1980s. It is presented by its publisher as the debut novel of Jacqueline Wiles.
Meg Turner, a farmer's wife, has her life turned upside down when she learns of the affair between her daughter and the son of Solomon Mbekeni, the family's long-serving and beloved houseman. She must come to terms with her tangled emotions against the hostile political backdrop of South Africa in the 1980s.
The story moves between South Africa and England, and explores love and change as democracy approaches. It is a contemporary South African novel that engages with the racial and social tensions of the late apartheid years, and will appeal to readers and collectors of modern South African fiction.
Heartshake Jacqueline Wiles · Jacqueline Wiles debut novel · Eastern Cape apartheid novel · South African fiction 1980s · Chrysalis Books 2025 · farm novel set in the Eastern Cape · modern South African novel
