The Flower Boy is a deeply moving and enchanting novel - a story of love, town secrets and family divisions. Lizzie Buckwater is born on a stormy night into a household nestled in Glencairn, on the lush tea estates of 1930s Ceylon. As Chandi, a little servant-boy, plays in the mud outside on this fourth birthday, he promises himself that the English baby will become his best friend. He christens her Rose-Lizzie after the flowers he loves, and the bright, perceptive boy soon forges the most important friendship of his life. As Chandi and Rose-Lizzie's closeness grows, so their two families - English and Ceylonese, master and servant - become entwined. And with the approach of Ceylonese independence the whole idyll faces destruction.