Love. Loss. Life.

“My heart broke three times when I read this astonishing story of excess, love and redemption – but I finished it with joy.” 
Jenny Crwys-Williams

In just a decade, journalist Monica Nicolson Oosterbroek Hilton-Barber Zwolsman married and lost both her beloved husbands – award-winning photographers Ken Oosterbroek and Steven Hilton-Barber, as well as her precious 16-month-old son, Benjamin. 

Most people would have collapsed under the weight of such tragic devastation. 

But Monica, a survivor of note, now finally tells the story of her rollercoaster ride of a life, in the much anticipated memoir Love. Loss. Life. 

This poignantly honest tale of love, loss and life, brilliantly written in Monica’s unique acerbic style, is a story of deep passion, crushing let downs, new beginnings, huge humour and the renewal of hope.

It is also a book filled with penetrating insights into a South Africa in the ’90s, in political transition. It sees Monica hurtling through war-zones of Africa with the men in her life – Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Uganda and Egypt – to Britain, Europe and America, delightfully written in a travelogue style.

Fundamentally Love. Loss. Life. is a survival story, where fate and personal choices meet with tragic results. Despite often teetering on the brink of eternal darkness, Monica learns that the power of the body’s natural life force is to survive and is impossible to extinguish. She also discovers humour and female bonding to be a miraculous antidote on even the darkest of days.