The Flower Boy: A Novel

Life on a tea plantation in 1930s Ceylon obeys none of the tyrannical clocks that rule the world outside; time there is measured by the seasons of twining growth, by the rainwater dripping off bright blossoms. This must be earth's version of paradise. It's also the only world Chandi knows. Son of the housekeeper, he enjoys a privileged, in-between life. Best friends with Rose-Lizzie, the English planter's daughter, he shares her schooling, her freedom, and the secret hiding places the misted hills yield only to them. Their friendship is innocent in its purpose and perfect in its understanding, yet troubling to those--servants and masters alike--who know what can happen when social taboos are violated.

Rose-Lizzie's father, John, is trapped in a marriage whose aridity mocks the lushness that surrounds him. He finds his eyes turning more and more often toward Premawathi, Chandi's lovely young mother, as she serenely goes about her duties in the great house. The ferocious strictures forbidding love between the ruling class and the natives keep them apart, but this only makes the electricity between them spark higher. When they finally let convention slip away, their love rends the delicate fabric of plantation life that had seemed so impervious to change.

And now the war, which has been convulsing all of Europe, reaches even this remote outpost of the British Empire, bringing to a boil the unrest simmering below the colony's placid surface. Adult sins and sorrows have encroached on the children's Eden, and Chandi and Rose-Lizzie must do what they can to save it.

The Flower Boy captures the magic that haunts the intense attachments of childhood and the bittersweet dangers of forbidden desire. At once a tender love story and a poignant evocation of an empire's last days, The Flower Boy will transport you.