Sixteen-year-old Chanda Kabelo, living in sub-Saharan Africa, knows only too well the truth behind the secret people are trying to keep hidden: that all around her people are dying because of AIDS. When her young stepsister dies, Chanda takes charge, organising the funeral for her grief-stricken mother. But Chanda remains a girl like any other, with hopes, worries and secrets of her own. Can she stay strong while helping her family to survive in the face of this tragedy?
Allan Stratton lives in Toronto, Canada. He is an award-winning and internationally published and produced playwright and novelist. A novel set against the AIDS pandemic, then, is not a book about a virus, but a book about the impact of a virus on universal themes central to the human heart: the love between parents and children, the loyalty of friends, the fear of abandonment, the terror of stigma, the pain of bereavement, and the courage to live with truth. ALLAN STRATTON