Nora Anne Brown studied composing at the Royal Academy of Music. In 2010 a trip to Rwanda gave her the inspiration for her first novel, The Flower Plantation, and her passion for Africa. Nora lives near St Andrews in Scotland with her husband. The Flower Plantation is Nora's first novel.

A novel about how love can triumph over the madness of genocide and war

Arthur Baptiste knows little of Rwanda's past and is unaware of its emerging troubles. He lives with his half-Tutsi, half-Belgian father and English mother on a flower plantation, where he talks to no one - not even the butterflies he avidly collects.

"Beni, the cook's granddaughter, is a child much like Arthur, but one who lives in a world far different from his own. Their friendship will take them from innocent adventures to dangerous encounters and on towards dark revelations.

As the years pass and conflicts erupt outside the plantation, Arthur comes to realize that the safe haven of his childhood and the entire country around it is about to be torn apart."

Nora Anne Brown sympathetically tells this poignant and harrowing tale of lives torn apart and families destroyed.

This exceptional debut novelist brings out the innocence of childhood in a beautiful way that makes the oncoming threat of war even more terrible... it is a book that will reward you in plenty.

[a] well-handled and horrifying climax. wonderful material.