Melodi Publishing announces the release of their debut novel by Mokopi Shale in the romance category Before There Was Us.
The novel tells the story Didintle “Didi” Sechele who grew up watching with awe the love her parents had for each other. This leads to her to becoming a well-known and loved author of the quintessential South African romance. Didi is a true romantic who has spent her life looking for her own Mr. Right, and the novel chronicles the humorous and often tragic journey that she goes through trying to find her true and lasting love.
The novel presents a compelling and complex journey to finding true love in a time of the hookup and throw away love culture. With an unexpected twist at the end of the book, it sets the scene beautifully for the feature film Love Lives Here, starring Thando Thabethe, which is opening at the Box office on the 05th April 2019. Like the film, the novel explores the themes of money, relationships, self-love, family, and of course sex and sexuality!
The author Mokopi Shale is quickly becoming known as the Queen of Romance, having published three romance novels in the past, with Before There Was us being her fourth. When asked about the novel she had this to say, “Like real-life human beings, all the characters we see on our screens have a back story, have a past, have reasons why they act the way they do. Before There Was Us, is a labour of love both literally and metaphorically because I took the backstory of Zinhle Malinga, who was originally called Didi Sechele, and turned it into a romance novel. Basically, all I wanted was to document a journey to self-love that asks for no permissions to do what needs to be done in order to find happiness”.
Melodi Publishing is a start-up publishing house that aims to partner with aspiring and established authors who do not want to deal with the stress involved in getting their book to distribution but rather to focus on telling their stories. The main focus of the company is to invite writers of English as well as indigenous South African languages to partner with Melodi in telling authentic South African stories.
“I have lived a million lifetimes in the books I have read and I want Melodi book readers to experience the same while also having the opportunity to engage in dialogue about their experience” Gao Mothogae, MD. Melodi Publishing is also looking, through their indigenous language written books, to create and bring back a passion for these languages and the shared history they hold as part of the rebirth of South African black communities.
