As someone whose earliest memories of the news included the Soweto Riots, I expected a harrowing read about a kidnapped black girl versus the white Apartheid system in South Africa. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised to find a rite of passage/love story with the political situation acting as a catalyst on the plot.

This book tells the story of Koba, a young tribal girl who witnesses her parents being murdered by an arrogant, rapacious Eugene Terre-Blanche-style land-owner on a human hunting trip in the Kalahari. When he gets his comeuppance, a well-meaning but misguided white liberal relative takes Koba in - far from her home.

Brought up in a world of shaman-like spirituality and basic survival skills, Koba must then adapt to her complete displacement. She uses her tribal upbringing to survive, and to maintain a link to her past, but her constant enemy remains the white man and the political situation of South Africa of the mid-20th century. She is hunted throughout the book - by the landowner's son, by her new white `mother', by other tribespeople, by politicians looking for a cause and by those looking for a victim. Only by her own foresight, and her wits, does she find resolution.

I found Koba's story surprisingly addictive. Her journey is not just one that leads her across internal borders to `white' South Africa but one in which she must make the transition from girl to woman, and to choose her own destiny. The cross-cultural/racial love story (the salt and honey of the title) conflicts with the situation she finds herself in.

Fortunately, considering the subject matter and South African backdrop, the author doesn't weaken the story by tub-thumping. Instead we see larger themes of old traditions vs modern mores, culture clashes, displacement and dilution going on. There are good and bad on both sides, and Candi Miller's handling of such diverse characters shows the harm that ignorance in general can do. Ultimately, it is Koba's character that holds the attention, not least through her `bush' approach to adolescence and managing her own solo rite of passage into adulthood.

There's more here than meets the eye from the Kalahari-coloured book cover. The author's ear for language and her experience on both sides of the South African divide has created an authentic feel that quickly overtakes any queries on the fast-moving opening with its high speed introduction of all the main characters. The word glossary and background information on the clicking language, mysticism and history of the Ju'hoansi tribe at the back of the book underline fact that the author knows her subject extremely well.