Eight year old Rosalinde lives in an idyllic version of Africa -- vervet monkeys in her garden, the lighthouse that illuminates her bedroom window at night, and Mohini, her mystical Hindu maid who is more maternal than her own mother -- until a moment in 1982, when she collides with apartheid and her entire belief system is thrown into chaos.
Mainly set on Durban's breathtaking North Coast, over a period of seventeen years, the story moves between atmospheric locations like the Skeleton Coast, Karoo, Cape Point, and KwaMashu, and hosts an array of vivid characters, including the charismatic Paris and his radical cousin Maleven; Mark, the ex-soldier; and Rosalinde's predatory, racist Uncle L on.
While navigating personal injustice, family sagas, romance, and political unrest, Rosalinde's coming of age parallels the years of apartheid's climactic end, against an increasingly violent backdrop, and she learns that the human condition of her motherland is far more complex than she ever imagined.