A wonderful novel. We meet Nyree and Cia, two children living in a remote farm in 1970s Rhodesia. We follow their days in school and exploring the farm as far as the fence. Their crotchety grandfather sits on the stoep drinking gin and tonic. Their mother runs the farm with the farmhands and their father is fighting in the war. The girls find fairies and mysticism in the rainforest and mix this with local religions and christianity as they perform ceremonies. It is idyllic and funny as we see the world through the eyes of these young people. Nyree and Cia eat peanut butter and jam sandwiches in their different ways sitting on the step, they are clearly a team. Into this comes Ronin, an orphaned cousin. His dark cruelty chills the African heat. This change in atmosphere is very well done and this is a gripping and engrossing read with vivid images. From page 19, 'But though we live in a world laced with threads of magic, triflings like tooth mice and firefly fairies pale next to the powerful magic that dwells in the forest. When Cia and I enter its unending twilight, the earthly gives way to the unearthly, to the ethereal.' ( )

I picked up this book in the library purely for my ‘World Challenge’ after reading that the author was born in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). As has happened a couple of times when I’ve picked up books on spec for that reason, it turned out to be an excellent read.

8-year-old Nyree and her sister Cia live on a farm in Rhodesia with their mother and grandparents, but the county’s political unrest means that Nyree’s father is away from home a lot of the time fighting. Nyree sees the political situation with childlike innocence and doesn’t realise the impact it will have on her family. Their idyllic life is interrupted by the arrival of their cousin, Ronin, a disturbed young man who makes their life very difficult and his arrival and the changing fortunes of the country mean that their lives will change forever.

This book, for me, had it all. It made me laugh, it made me cry. The characters are so well written, as are the descriptions of the country and it makes for such a vivid novel. There is a sense of foreboding throughout, not only because of the political turmoil but because one knows that, with the arrival of Ronin, things are not going to get any better for the family. A cracking read!

The one thing that irritated me slightly was the use of a glossary at the back for some of the African terminology. It could have been better if the translations of unknown words were done at the foot of the page, rather than at the back of the book, as it did rather interrupt the flow of this gripping story! ( )

From the book cover:
"'Cia is my sister and I am her leader. The two of us are sitting on the flagstone steps outside the kitchen door eating our peanut butter and jam sandwiches. Cia peels hers apart, like she always does, and slowly licks out the filling, while I squash the layers of bread together between my palms until mine oozes peanut butter and jam goo, and then I gulp it down.'

Nyree and Cia O'Callohan live on a remote farm in the east of what was Rhodesia in the late 1970s. Beneath the dripping vines of the Vumba rainforest, and under the tutelage of their heretical grandfather, theirs is a seductive childhood laced with African paganism, mangled Catholicism and the lore of the Brothers Grimm. Their world extends as far as the big fence, erected to keep out the 'Terrs' whom their father is off fighting. The two girls know little beyond that until the arrival from the outside world of 'the bastard,' their orphaned cousin Ronin, who is to poison their idyll for ever."

This is an impressive first novel which was shortlisted for the Orange prize and understandably so. Their is a ring of truth about the tale, I suspect garnered from personal experience. It represents a child's view of what it was to live through these troubled times in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe. ( )

Nominated for an Orange Iterature award. The story is told by an eight year old girl who lives in Rhodesia in the 1970s against a background of civil was. Even though Nyree's family live in constant fear of the 'Terrs' (terrorists) the real,threat comes from someone much more closer.

A fascinating look at a childhood in another time and place - highly recommended.

It is Rhodesia in the 1970s, and two young white sisters, Nyree and Cia, are growing up on an isolated farm, being brought up by their over-worked mother and their slightly cracked Oupa, while their father is off fighting the Terrs.

I reckon a Terr is about eight feet tall, he slobbers and his toenails are long, ragged and filthy. He tears the limbs off live vervet monkeys to gnaw and if he gets his hands on a cane rat, he guts it with a snaggletooth, the licks the entrails off his dripping chin. That's why his teeth are dark and rotted: if you feed on live animals, the blood stains them for ever. Cia nodded, satisfied, as if I'd confirmed what she'd suspected all along. But actually I know that Terr is short for 'terrorist' and Dad's always been fighting them because there's always been the War.

Oupa sits on the stoep, drinking gin and tonics, and sermonising about duty and damnation, the road to perdition, dereliction of duty, and his dead brother, Great-Uncle Seamus, a Prodigal Son and a Scoundrel who went 'astray'. The children are fascinated by Seamus and the hints of his story they glean from Oupa, and then one summer the story comes to life for them when their cousin Ronin comes to stay. He's a handsome boy, but under his polished exterior lies darkness.

This was a beautifully written book, filled with magic, both English and African. The characters were wonderful, although Ronin could have been better fleshed out, he seems to be evil without any chance of redemption, which seems unfair for such a young man. The location and time was also fascinating, it's an era I know very little about.

Overall, it was a bit of a corker. Funny, sad, disturbing. ( )