The Age of OrphansKurdistan, Persia. A village high in the Zagros mountains. A small green eyed boy wrestles free from his mother and climbs atop a straw and mud hut to gaze at the dusty landscape; the jagged mountains and azure sky, the cattle in the distance. With his arms stretched out beside him he pretends to be a bird, to lift up and soar over this land: the land of his fathers and forefathers. Kurdish land. Soon after the boy is ritually initiated into manhood,

delightful

a scam that leads them into more dangerous waters

William Benson knows what it's like to be accused of something you didn't do - the fear

Nolan has excelled herself'

Two years later

'I'll miss these resourceful

a colonial British-American villager of Dutch ancestry

Yet behind each name lie a thousand tale

Gaspar Foche

At once a literary novel

lollies and sand

a story of a small group of Kingsbridge people including spinner Sal Clitheroe