'A bewitchingly beautiful and utterly captivating story' Independent on Sunday

Austria, 1944. Jakob, a gypsy boy - half Roma, half Yenish - runs, as he has been told to do. With shoes of sackcloth, still stained with another's blood, a stone clutched in one hand, a small wooden box in the other. He runs blindly, full of fear, empty of hope.

'Don't be afraid, Jakob,' his father has told him. 'See the colours, my boy,' he has whispered. So he does. Rusted ochre from a mossy bough. Steely white from the sap of the youngest tree. On and on, Jakob runs.

Spanning from one world war to another, taking us across England, Switzerland and Austria, this powerful first novel is drawn from a little-known piece of history: the Porrajmos, or Gypsy Holocaust. And through it all is woven the brightness of hope, the strength of the human spirit, the colours that make life worth living.

'A memorable debut... luminously beautiful... a powerful story' The Times

'Deeply involving... [Hawdon] will go far' Guardian

'This book demands to be read' John Humphrys

www.lhawdon.co.uk
@lindsayhawdon
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