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The Flame Trees Of Thika
The Flame Trees Of Thika
Dec 6, 2025 4:46 AM

Author:Elspeth Huxley

The Flame Trees Of Thika

When Elspeth Huxley’s pioneer father buys a remote plot of land in Kenya, the family sets off to discover their new home: five hundred acres of Kenyan scrubland, infested with ticks and white ants, and quavering with heat. What they lack in know-how they make up for in determination: building a grass house, employing local Kikuyu tribe members and painstakingly transforming their patch of wilderness into a working farm. Huxley’s unforgettable childhood memoir is a sensitive account of settler life at the turn of the twentieth century and a love song to the harshness and beauty of East Africa.

Reviews

An enchantment and a joy to read

—— Books and Bookmen

She knows East Africa and she loves it - the people, black and white, and the wild beauty of its countryside - with a critical and understanding sympathy

—— The Times

An accomplished story-teller, she weaves anecdotes, character sketches, political history together without losing her thread or the reader's momentum

—— Sunday Times

What a marvellous writer...and what a Kenya it was

—— Financial Times

It’s a treat to read such a satisfying, complex work

—— Financial Times

As with Haig’s other crossover novels The Radleys and The Humans, this combines a cracking plot with profound philosophical questions about what it is to be human. Fearless and beautifully written, it confirms Haig as one of our best new writers of speculative fiction

—— Amanda Craig , New Statesman

Matt Haig uses words like a tin-opener. We are the tin

—— Jeanette Winterson

Haig brings to life a terrifying and claustrophobic dystopian future. The future we are shown in Echo Boy is dark and disturbing, but there is hope. Hope that whatever terrors await, you can't put out "the irrepressible light" inside a person

—— Telegraph

Poignant and thought-provoking

—— The Bookseller

Will appeal as much to adults as teenagers . . . Enough action, adventure and tension with a slight dusting of romance to keep anyone enthralled . . . Matt Haig has penned a number of hugely popular adult and young children's novels and if Echo Boy is anything to go by, he's on the way to steal the YA market too . . . It's his unique depth of writing that makes Matt Haig's work such compelling reading

—— Starburst

Matt Haig's first young adult novel is a thrilling science-fiction roller-coaster ride. The combination of romance and dystopia may be a familiar concept for young adult fiction, but Haig gives it his own distinctive spin, bringing freshness and a huge amount of imagination to this well-trodden territory . . . Echo Boy will keep young readers on the edge of their seats - but will also leave them with questions and philosophical problems to ponder

—— Booktrust

A fun read with an intriguing setting

—— SFX

An infinitely rewarding novel . . . The futuristic world is imagined in such detail it begins to live before one’s eyes

—— Literature Works

YA sci-fi fans will love this one . . . Definitely a book I’m going to be recommending

—— Feeling Fictional

This is strong, relentless stuff. Matt Haig's universe is impressively consistent in every detail. We inescapably inhabit this world. The plot is chillingly taut

—— Books for Keeps
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