She arrived in Kenya as a Princess and left as a Queen. In February 1952, Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary of England traveled to colonial Kenya with her husband, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. While staying at Treetops in the Aberdare Range, history changed forever.

On 6 February 1952, her father, His Majesty King George VI, King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the Seas, died at Sandringham. Elizabeth learned of his death in Kenya and was proclaimed Queen while still in the colony.

But Kenya itself was already at war.

As the Mau Mau Emergency spread, violence reached deep into the White Highlands. In 1953, settlers Roger Ruck, his wife Esme, and their young son Michael were killed in a Mau Mau attack, shocking the colonial community and hardening the conflict.

Soon after, Mary Leakey was murdered during a raid on her farm. Her husband, Arundell Leakey, was abducted and later killed in the forest, an act that spread fear far beyond the immediate violence.

From royal ceremony to rural terror, this book traces:

The rise of Mau Mau resistance and the brutal attacks on isolated settler families

British counterinsurgency operations and mass detentions that reshaped Kenyan society

Operation Anvil (1954) and the sealing of Nairobi in one of the largest security sweeps of the Emergency

The Hola Camp killings (1959) that exposed imperial brutality and shattered Britain's moral authority

The slow collapse of British control in Kenya, as empire gave way to independence This book is for fans of The Flame Trees of Thika and Out of Africa, and anyone captivated by sweeping historical drama, fierce resistance, and the human stories behind a nation's rebirth. Get your copy today and step into the heart of Kenya's turbulent history.