Challenges in a Colonial County is the sequel to the historical novel Liaisons - Life in a Colonial County. As such, Challenges begins in 1876 where Liaisons ended and contextualises authentic and fictitious developments, up until 1889 in Alexandra County on the Natal South Coast.Like Liaisons, Challenges is a critical fabulation in that it inserts credible experiences in the gaps and silences of the historical record. Those gaps and silences involve tragedy, drama, love, predatory capitalism, controversy involving indentured Indian labour, reformist attempts to moderate social conventions, racial prejudice, obduracy of the colonial government towards infrastructure development and politics. To avoid any misunderstanding, the interaction of the authentic characters with those around which the plot revolves is contrived. The following characters in the plot are fictitious: the Prescotts, Harrisons, Harringtons, Pryces, Gordon and Lily Snell, Geoffrey and Stella Southam, Sarika Singh, Hugh Lawson, Michael, Cynthia, Ruth and Margaret Moodie, Peter Richardson, Emma Johnson, the Smiths; Lucy, Luke, Ginger; Stella Hassall, Janki, Mr Tatham, Dulcie Lister, Yvonne Clark, Mr Butler, Isabel, and Alice Greenacre. The following places are fictitious: Michaelhouse, Sarika's stores, Dewsbury, Preston, Crofton, Glenmore, Taunton Manor, the Cutty Sark, and the Wiltshire.