Excerpt from Cape Fever by Nadia Davids, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Inside, she plumps the pillows on the narrow bed, bends to smooth and pat the bleached and mended cotton covers. "The furniture in here was once in the main house." And with a final tug at a pillow's end, "You will not find me here again. I will respect your privacy."

She is expecting my thanks and I give them to her. On the floor, a round braided rug, and next to the bed, a plain table with a pale-yellow jug and bowl. There are net curtains and a small looking glass. It is a nice room and it could easily be made nicer—I imagine one of my father's protective rakams above my head and a jar of mountain daisies, fresh plucked, star bright, on the table. But there's a musty, all-wrong smell too that I can't put my finger on—it may be that the room is damp and needs an airing; it may be that an uninvited jinn has taken up residence. I resolve to burn some buchu at the first opportunity; that will take care of the problem either way.

I look over at the door's bolt: it is thick iron, firmly screwed and locks from the inside. I cannot resist touching it, testing it.

"All is in order, my dear. Fatima, the old you, was fastidious. Look around if you like! It's your room, you should get acquainted!"

There's a sweetness to her enthusiasm that is catching. I make a show of interest, opening the drawers of the dresser, touching the curtains' soft weave, looking out the small window to the lawn and its gravel pathway running between my new home and hers.

"Poor Fatima," says Mrs. Hattingh, sitting herself on the bed. "Old as the hills. She came with the house, you know. Worked here since she was a girl. Couldn't read either… But more devout than you, covered her face when she went into town. I'd have been lost without her, especially in those early years. She nursed me so wonderfully through the foreigners' flu, and when she caught it, I did the same for her, but she was never the same after… Slow to talk and such sad, sharp little breaths… A saint, really."

I, no saint, will soon lie where Fatima once did, slapping my face with water from the same yellow bowl, finding the dips and crevices she made in the mattress, our sighs and songs meeting somewhere in the eaves. Old Fatima would have known another girl would come to take her place, and so she's left me this gift, a strong bolt on the door.

"Well." My new employer breaks through the quiet that has formed around us. "If you've no more questions, you may go. I expect you on Monday by eight o'clock, bags in hand. No later, mind. We have much to get through."

Excerpted from Cape Fever by Nadia Davids. Copyright © 2025 by Nadia Davids. Excerpted by permission of Simon & Schuster. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.