WHITE THORN ~ Bryce Courtenay HARD COVER DUSTJACKET VGC

From master storyteller Bryce Courtenay, comes a new novel about Africa. Set in 1939, it is the story of six-year-old Tom Fitzsaxby, living in an orphanage. Like the whitethorn, one of Africa's most enduring plants, Tom learns how to survive in the harsh climate of racial hatred.

White South Africa is a deeply divided nation with many of the Afrikaner people fanatically opposed to the English. The world is also on the brink of war and South Africa elects to fight for the Allied cause against Germany.

Tom is living in The Boys Farm, an orphanage in a remote town in the high mountains, where the Afrikaners side fiercely with Hitler's Germany. Tom's English name proves sufficient for him to be ostracised, marking him as an outsider. And so begin some of life's tougher lessons for the small, lonely boy.

A terrible event sends Tom on a journey to ensure that justice is done. On the way, he makes an unexpected discovery.