January 9, 2017
McVeigh (The Fever Tree) explores the beauty of Kenya’s culture and landscape while simultaneously keeping the tension of impending conflict immediate and pressing in this captivating and thought-provoking story. When 18-year-old Rachel returns to Kenya during the 1950s, she expects to find her home unchanged. After her mother’s death, she spent six years in an English boarding school, dreaming of the peaceful African plains; however, the Kenya she returns to is a place of great political turmoil. The society of the Mau Mau want to take back their land from the white settlers with methods that are growing increasingly violent. Rachel feels the friction at home as well, with her father’s new English girlfriend running the household under tight control by ensuring the Kenyan servants fear her. Unwilling to succumb to prejudice, Rachel must face constant disapproval for the time she spends in the servants’ quarters. Her only confidant is her former tutor, a Kenyan man named Michael, who now works as a mechanic on the farm. McVeigh’s beautiful prose and harrowing plot will quickly absorb readers, particularly those interested in 1950s Africa, by sensitively approaching themes of race, cultural evolution, and the humanness that unites us all. Agent: Stephanie Cabot, Gernert Company.
