Judith C

“Wow… I just have to congratulate the author on this truly exceptional book! 📚✨ I feel so incredibly glad and privileged to have read it.Thank you for sharing your powerful experiences, and I deeply admire you for all the years of sacrifice behind this journey. I sincerely hope this becomes a bestseller—it truly deserves it. May it succeed in its vital goal of raising awareness about this horrific industry and everything that surrounds it.Well done!! 👏👏”

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Anna S

“I couldn’t put this book down. A well written, easy read which opened my eyes to the lion trade in South Africa. The images throughout the book were a special touch. Would highly recommend.”

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Mari C

“I finished this in one day because it was genuinely easy and interesting to read. It never felt drawn out, but still managed to capture significant moments and the emotion around them without becoming soppy.

I loved the different animal stories and realised how little I know about this world. The lion trade is an important part of the book, but it isn’t constantly pushed to make you feel uncomfortable. You become aware of it naturally as the events unfold, which I think makes the message more powerful. There is something very real about the way the whole story is told. It doesn’t try too hard to make things dramatic or extraordinary. It thoughtfully and gracefully tells you what happened, and what happened really is extraordinary.”

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Ciska-mari M

“I knew this was a book about Fasa the White Lion when I started it. I didn’t realise quite how many other animals, people and stories I was about to meet along the way. That ended up being one of my favourite things about the book. One moment you’re following the care of an individual animal, the next you’re getting a glimpse into the realities of the veterinary world, wildlife rehabilitation, and the exploitation of lions. There is humour at just the right moments, making for entertaining reading alongside parts that are genuinely unsettling, and quite a lot of it had me thinking, “How did I not know this was happening?

What surprised me was how real some extremely unusual situations begin to feel when they’re told by the person who was actually there, living it. There are moments that would probably seem far-fetched in fiction, yet they’re presented without trying to convince you of how dramatic they are. I liked that restraint. The book allows the events to carry their own weight.

I appreciated the way that the serious issue of the captive lion industry emerges. The book does educate you, and it makes the importance of the issue impossible to ignore, but it does so by helping you understand rather than trying to overwhelm you. It doesn’t rely on shock or guilt to force a reaction. Instead, it brings you close to the individual animals, shows you what can happen to them, and gives you the knowledge to recognise why their lives and protection matter. By the time you grasp the bigger picture, you don’t just understand more of the issue, you feel empowered to care about it and to think differently about what needs to change.

What also stayed with me was the author’s extraordinary tenacity. It is one thing to recognise that something is wrong, but it is another to keep fighting for what is right when doing so demands so much of you. The book makes clear how many sacrifices, difficult decisions and emotional setbacks can be involved in protecting animals and challenging systems that are deeply entrenched. There are some lovely personal moments that offer a glimpse of the emotional rollercoaster she had to go through with people, animals and events, but they never feel sensationalised. They are simply allowed to land where they should, which makes them feel all the more honest and genuine.

And through all of this, Fasa’s story keeps finding its way back to the centre. Knowing that these aren’t invented characters or carefully constructed plot points changes the way some of those moments land.

It’s an unusually easy book to spend time with considering that parts of its subject matter aren’t easy at all. I finished it much faster than I expected, but I’ve thought about the world it introduced me to quite a bit since. I recommend it to anyone interested in a thoughtful, engaging story about the people and animals caught up in a complex world that deserves more attention.”