In 1960s, a country blighted by civil war, three lives intersect. Ugwu, a boy from a poor village, works as as housebouy for a university lecturer.

Olanna, a young woman, has abandoned her life of privilege in Lagos to live with her charismatic new lover, the professor. The third is Richard, a shy Englishman in thrall to Olanna´s enigmatic twin sister.

When the shocking horror of the war engulfs them, their loyalties are severely tested as they are pulled apart and thrown together in ways that none of them imagined...