The Happy Valley

by Christopher Nicole Book 2 in the Kenya Series series.

First published 1989

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4.4(905)

A bond that cannot be broken. In the early years of the twentieth century, the beautiful rolling farmlands of East Africa are nothing short of an earthly paradise for their powerful white colonial settlers. And for no-one does that paradise seem sweeter than for John Barclay, son and heir of one of Kenya’s most prominent families. As John Barclay travels back to his family farm Naivasha after leaving Oxford University, he meets Joseph Kinshashu, a Kikuyu who offers his services as a personal valet to the young heir.

When World War One breaks out shortly afterwards, John and Joseph’s friendship will be tested as both see the other through some hard times. But that is only the beginning of the bloody turbulence that will swamp not only their country, but their friendship too. For Joseph, it becomes all-too-clear that the white man is the unnatural ruler in a country that should rightfully be returned to its true owners. John Barclay and Joseph Kinshashu begin as companions but are divided by war, land ownership and the movement for African self-government, allowing the novel to follow colonial Kenya from the First World War into the era of decolonisation.