“This job was money. It was the roof over her head. It was what kept her parents alive and what allowed her to remain in South Africa legally. She knew how hard it was to find stable work, especially as a domestic worker when there were ten other women ready and willing to do your job for half the wages. She had seen the trucks at the border post taking illegals back to Mozambique and had heard the stories of the weeks spent in detention centres if you were caught in South Africa without a work visa.”

She had no choice.

Rachel Nyaga, a Mozambican domestic worker living in Johannesburg, is forced to make a life-changing decision after her young daughter dies whilst under the care of her South African employers, Chris and Michelle Jordaan. She can either leave her job and return to poverty stricken Mozambique, losing her income, visa and means of supporting her parents, or continue working for the people responsible for the death of her child.

Trapped by circumstance, she decides to stay but things become even more complicated when she finds out that the Jordaans are expecting their first child. Held together in guilt and shame, fear and desolation, Rachel, Michelle and Chris recognise that while their lives are now forever and inextricably linked in an unending nightmare, somehow they will need to break free if they are to survive.

Rachel Weeping is a contemporary drama that explores the theme of motherhood, loss and forgiveness through the experience of three victims of a horrible accident.

About the author

Born in 1983 in Johannesburg, Brett Michael Innes graduated in 2005 as a producer from AFDA, the Oscar-winning South African film school, on a scholarship from the National Film & Video Foundation of South Africa.

He spent three years working as a documentary photographer and filmmaker with various NGO’s and church groups, a position that has seen him and his camera drive from South Africa to South Sudan twice and kayak through the Okavango Delta. He has also done video work in malnutrition camps in Angola as well as excursions to Tanzania, Mozambique, Malawi, Mongolia, Sierra Leone, DRC, Nepal, Liberia, Lesotho, Zambia, Zimbabwe, the USA, France, England, Switzerland, Italy, Turkey, China, Nigeria and Mexico.

In 2012 he turned his focus to feature films and literature, achieving considerable success in South Africa with 3 feature films in active development. The pilot script for Peace on Paper, a television series that he has written, has been optioned by Spier Films and was ranked by the International Emmy Awards in the Top 10 world wide for the Sir Peter Ustinov Award in 2012.

Rachel Weeping is Innes' second novel and will release in June 2015. His first book, The Story of Racheltjie de Beer, was released in 2012 and became a local bestseller, hitting top positions on both local and international book charts.

Rachel Weeping is published by Tracey McDonald Publishers