Elise loves the farm that is her home; she loves playing with beetles and chameleons in the garden, buying sweets from the village shop and listening to the stories of spirits and charms told by her nanny, Beauty. As a young white girl in 1990s Zimbabwe, her life is idyllic. Her clothes are always clean and ironed, there is always tea in the silver teapot, gin and tonics are served on the veranda, and, in theory at least, black and white live in harmony.
However this dream-world of her childhood cannot last. As Elise gets older, her eyes are opened to the complexities of adult existence,...

'Look after your sister, Tinashe.' Tinashe is a young Shona boy living in a small village in rural Rhodesia. The guerilla war of the late 1960s haunts the bushlands, but it only infrequently affects his quiet life. When his younger sister, Hazvinei, is born, Tinashe knows at once that there is something special about her.