Meet Steve Braker- Author

Hi thanks for passing by my website. Here is a little about me.

I have lived in Kenya East Africa since 2000. I arrived bright-eyed and bushy tailed as a father of four at the grand old age of thirty-five. I had big dreams back then of being rich and famous. I didn’t have a clue about life in Africa. All I knew was that my kids were growing up in one of the busiest cities on earth, and in my opinion needed some time to see the world before it gobbled them up. I chose Kenya because it was stable and my wife at that time came from Kisumu. However, after traveling around for some time we decided on Mombasa.

This was not my first adventure in a new country. As a twenty-one-year-old, I packed my bags and headed off to the Far East. This was way back in the mists of time, long before the internet had become a thing! I arrived in Bangkok and rubbed shoulders with Vietnam Veterans, then traveled to the Golden Triangle and the Cambodian Border. When I had exhausted Thailand, I wandered along the peninsula into Malaysia and Singapore, then crossed to Borneo and climbed Mount Kinabalu. On my way home, about a year later, I decided to go and see the Taj Mahal and spent another few months traveling around India. So, I was no stranger to travel, and I wanted my growing children to have a similar wanderlust.

When I arrived in Kenya, I was not a backpacker and I had four young responsibilities to think of. I had to learn the language of Swahili, and Jalou, my wife’s language, and most importantly find gainful employment.

We were very lucky to find a house on a creek near a town called Mtwapa, you might remember this name from my second book, “African Paradise.” Our house was unfurnished; we had to find people called, “fundis” who would chop down some coconut palms and make us a sofa right in the living room! Life was good; the water was from a well in the garden, and we went to sleep listening to the crickets’ chirp and the frogs’ croak! The local supermarket was two hours drive away, but we were able to buy most of what we needed from the local villages around us. We were, ‘Living the dream,’ as Brody would say

After setting up home, my search for employment became urgent. I had noticed a run-down marina a few miles further along Mtwappa creek. I put on my best shorts and T-shirt and headed to speak to the owner. As it turned out, he was an old white guy who was thinking of retiring and wanted to rent the place for the next ten years. We shook hands and had a beer in the local bar to seal the deal.

I took over the next day; it was a real eye-opener. For the first six months, I was at the mercy of the employees and customers alike. I lost so much money that I thought I would have to pack up and head back to the U.K. But my saving grace was learning Kiswahili. I found a teacher in Old Town, Mombasa and went to him every day for the next six months. I was immersed in the language, so I learned it very quickly. As soon as I knew what was being said, I was able to turn things around.

I started doing specialized work on wooden dhows that ply the coast of Kenya and Tanzania. I employed fundis from Lamu and Somalia to do the work. I learned to sail and repair the dhows with basic tools the fundis use. There is no electricity along Kenya’s coast, especially where the dhows are repaired, so all the fundis worked with tools that looked like they had been used to build the ark!

As soon as we got settled, we decided that we would try to see every corner of Kenya. We often packed up the old 110 Landrover I had bought off a local missionary and headed into the game parks for a weekend of camping. Or we would jump on my boat and head for Shimoni on the border with Tanzania and spend the weekend in the marine part.

I loved the water, much like Brody, and would spend every free moment snorkeling or fishing along the coast. I also became a PADI open-water dive instructor so I could earn some extra cash by running dive courses at local hotels.

In time I was able to expand my business to be able to repair fiberglass boats and engines. This was one of the happiest times of my life. I was able to be with my kids most of the time and also do what I loved. I even bought an old dhow and renovated it myself. Then in 2008, I sailed the dhow with a friend of mine to Lamu which is a 150-mile journey in the open ocean but that’s another story!

Ten years flew past. My children grew up to be adults and wanted to head back to the UK for university. Suddenly, I was alone. I decided I wanted more freedom, so I sold the marina. This is when writing action thrillers struck me as something I would love to do. I had been an English teacher in Bangkok and had owned my own school in Leicester Square, London, teaching English to foreign students, so my grammar was pretty good. I had also written some short action thrillers as the kids were growing up.

After sitting in many bars for many hours, William Brody was born. I decided I would intertwine my adventures with a fictional character that could have their own adventures along the coast. I wanted Brody to be in search of freedom, something I value very highly. I gave him some friends that were a mixture of some of the wonderful people I had met since I had arrived in East Africa. Then I mixed all of that in with my love of Clive Cussler’s books.

My first book took about six months, African Slaver, it was a labour of love and turned out to be my intro to the series. My grammar and English were good, but I had never learned storytelling. When I finished African Slaver, I handed it to my wife and said, “Let me know what you think?” She came back about two hours later with a raft of ideas. In her opinion, I had missed about three chapter!

So, I sat down again and rewrote African Slaver. Since then, I have learned to tell a much more involved story and my books usually end up being about 100k words. But we all must start somewhere.

That was back in 2016. Since then, I have been on an incredible journey learning the art of writing and then as an indie author internet marketing and all that goes along with it.

I have had ups and downs I can tell you, and I have the scars to prove it. But it has been a wonderful journey of life, extending my already adventurous life and I love it.

I truly hope my love of this continent comes out in the books I write. I try to show the people as I have known them and lived with them. I try to explain life at sea as it is not in a romanticized way but true to my memory. I have sailed the Indian Ocean for weeks at a time on dhows and sailing boats. I no longer teach students how to dive, but I still spend a lot of time attached to a dive tank looking at the wonderful creatures below the ocean.

I hope you enjoy my William Brody Action Series. If you want a chat just drop me a line at [email protected] and I will reply immediately.