* Christian Science Monitor "10 Best Books of August" pick* "Fans of women's history and adventure stories will cheer this engrossing account." -- Publishers Weekly " Olive the Lionheart has it all - secret chambers, lost love, and the dwelling place of a devil. Ricca mines emotions and real fears in this incredible true story." --Brad Meltzer, bestselling author of The First Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill George Washington "Brad Ricca's Olive MacLeod is my favorite sort of woman from history--bold and unconventional, utterly unsinkable--and her story is so full of adventure and acts of courage, it's hard to believe she actually lived. And yet she did! Brad Ricca has found a heroine for the ages, and written her tale with a winning combination of accuracy and imagination." --Paula McLain, author of Love and Ruin and The Paris Wife "Ricca makes the most of this engaging story." -- Booklist "[Ricca] successfully conveys the powerful, nearly hallucinatory state of grief that MacLeod must have endured over the course of her journey. A swift-moving re-creation of an intrepid, rare spirit of her age.

" -- Kirkus Reviews "This incredible true story of one woman's quest to find her missing fiancé is the perfect summer adventure book. In 1910, Scottish aristocrat Olive MacLeod received word that her fiancé, the famed naturalist Boyd Alexander, was missing in Africa. So, she went to find him. Though there are wild animals to fight and inhospitable forests to whack through, MacLeod's incredible journey becomes even stranger as she goes on." -- Town & Country "Olive the Lionheart presents an immersive portrait of a remarkable, largely unheralded individual." -- Smithsomian Magazine "Olive the Lionheart is a harrowing and fascinating tale of a woman who broke rules and hearts as she blazed trails in a world of change." -- bookreporter.