In 1967 Beverley Harper travelled to Africa, intending to spend one year there. She stayed twenty, returning to settle in Australia in 1988. Her time in Africa provided the inspiration for her best-selling novels and she travelled back to that continent for research purposes once a year. Harper died of cancer in 2002 and her ashes were returned to her beloved Africa. Her final novel, Footprints of Lion, was completed by her husband, Robert.