Many thanks to Netgalley for my copy of A Child Called Happiness.

A Child Called Happiness is a highly engaging story set in Zimbabwe. The author did a great job of transporting reader there with great description of the surroundings. Natalie, our main character has recently arrived in Zimbabwe and Is on a morning trek with her uncle when suddenly she hears a small noise and finds an abandoned child. This is the first example of some of the weighty issues the book explores. We also read about the political unrest in the area, the occupation of white people in the area as well as the revenge taken by the black inhabitants. The novel stirs up great emotion as Collinshaw has created vivid characters and when you read from both sides of the story you feel the same hurt and resentment that both sides feel. I liked Natalies character. She has a desire to 'do the right thing' however she is also very naive and soon becomes entangled in the argument of white vs. black. A very thought provoking read.

The novel opens with the discovery of an abandoned baby on a farm in Mazowe Valley, Zimbabwe. An English woman, Natalie, is visiting her aunt and uncle on their farm, riding out over the landscape when she hears the cries of a lost baby that echo the loss she left England to escape.

Alongside her story, and the story of the farm and her family’s legacy on that land, is the story of a Zimbabwean man whose family owned the land long before the white men came and took it for themselves. His is another story of loss and as we read, we uncover his identity, and follow him on his quest to reclaim his birthright.

Independence, Mugabe and the new regime, are all in the novel. The fight over what land belongs to whom, over who controls the wealth of the nation, steps across racial boundaries. It is not necessarily a novel’s job to redress the wrongs of colonialism, but pointing out the wrongs and the complexities that arise from the wrath of history do need to be addressed and the reader should leave this novel with more questions than answers.

They name the foundling baby, Happiness. But what chance does Happiness have in this environment of revenge and greed?

A Child Called Happiness is an emotional and tense novel that nonetheless has remarkable poise.

Set in Zimbabwe, this dual-time frame novel explores the political situation in this most troubled of countries through the stories of Natalie, a young woman who is visiting her aunt and uncle on their farm, and the family of Moses, one of her uncle’s workers. Going back and forth in time the two threads are expertly interweaved and gradually meet in space and time, covering on the way Zimbabwe’s original occupation by white settlers and the inevitable – although of course no one knew it at the time – revenge taken out on them by the black inhabitants. Some weighty issues are explored here – the dispossession of the native people set against the recent dispossession of the white farmers, colonial attitudes to the native people, the ongoing conflict about who owns the land. Mugabe himself enters the story at one point. The brutality, cruelty and corruption of the current regime is set against the brutality and cruelty of the original colonisers to great effect. The novel is an excellent portrayal of the country and its problems but I felt something was lacking. There’s a flatness to the prose that detracts from the horror. The attacks on the white famers seem much less terrifying than they must have been in reality. Natalie is portrayed as well-meaning but ultimately she has the same patronising attitude to the native people that her predecessors must have had, and the children she tries to teach are too good to be true. So a mixed bag here. An enjoyable and well-written novel but one which ultimately fails to get across the nightmare that Zimbabwe was and remains.

Colonialism is not always a good thing, resentments grow, and factions of the misplaced rise up against the invaders, Zimbabwe is one such country in Africa that has seen more than its fair share of troubles and that is where we find Natalia.

You knew immediately that Natalie had arrived on her Uncle's farm to get away from from a major life event in England, an event that the author merely hints at, dropping little clues here and there until slowly the truth is revealed.

Natalie's and her Uncles' discovery of an abandoned baby stirs up huge inner emotions in Natalie, whilst bringing her into contact with the local villagers and a poignant and moving relationship with a young girl, Memories. Agreeing to be their new teacher you cannot but help revel in Natalie's sheer joy as she relishes in teaching children who want to learn, but you also knew that happy times would not last for long.

And indeed they don't and Natalie is soon embroiled in the politics of white against black, of the rights of the native Zimbabweans to take back land that is rightfully theirs. This is where the real story began and in alternating chapter Collishaw immersed me in the history of this once beautiful country.

I read with horror the story of Tafara, as he tried and failed to rise up against the whites as they took their land, restricted them to reservations, farmed the rich soil and mined the gold from their country. You could clearly feel the mounting anger and resentment of Tafara's sons and grandsons as Collishaw slowly intertwined the two timelines, and you began to make connections between past and present characters. What impressed me about the narrative, were the conflicting emotions Collishaw stirred up. Yes, I felt huge sympathy for Tafara and his family, yes the land was rightfully theirs, but the way in which they went about attempting to reclaim what was rightfully theirs was clearly wrong. On the flip side the invocation of white rule and their methods was also wrong, yet how would you solve such a dilemma? I liked that Collishaw never bogged the story down in politics but merely hinted of Mugabwe's dictatorial rule, letting the characters tell the story and me the reader come to my own conclusions.

What struck me more than anything was the vivid imagery of the landscape, the heat and dust of Africa, the monsoonal torrential rains, and how perfectly it fitted the mounting tensions of the story. Indeed, the story simmered slowly before building to a drama filled ending that did not disappoint.

It is a novel that I found to be thought provoking and enthralling, it's narrative and characters vivid and evocative.