Abie follows the arc of a letter from London back to Africa to a coffee plantation that now could be hers if she wants it. Standing among the ruined groves she strains to hear the sound of the past, but the layers of years are too many.

Thus begins the gathering of her family's history through the tales of her aunts - four women born to four different wives of a wealthy plantation owner, her grandfather. Asana, Mariama, Hawa, and Serah: theirs is the story of a nation, a family, and four women's attempts to alter the course of her own destiny.

Aminatta Forna was born in Scotland and raised in West Africa and the UK. Her most recent novel The Hired Man is a tale of love, loss, betrayal, and war in Croatia. Her previous novel The Memory of Love (April 2010), was winner of the 2011 Commonwealth Writers Prize Best Book Award, and shortlisted for the Orange Prize 2011, the IMPAC 2012, and the 2011 Warwick Prize.