Rainbow's End: A Memoir of Childhood, War and an African Farm

Lauren St John

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In 1978, in the final, bloodiest phase of Rhodesia's struggle to become Zimbabwe, eleven-year-old Lauren St John moves with her family to a wild, beautiful farm on the banks of a slow-flowing river. The house was the scene of a horrific guerrilla attack and settling there changes Lauren's life irrevocably.

RAINBOW'S END captures the overwhelming beauty and extraordinary danger of life in the African bush. Lauren's childhood reads like a girl's own adventure story as, at the height of the war, she rides through the wilderness on her horse, Morning Star, encountering lions, crocodiles, vicious ostriches and mad cows. Yet the greatest threat is the ruthless guerrillas who prowl the land, making each day more dangerous, vivid and prized than the last.

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Praise for Rainbow's End: A Memoir of Childhood, War and an African Farm

  • The starkly honest memoirs of a white Rhodesian forced to face up to the racist, violent truth of her society. St John's disarming frankness triumphs. - Financial TimesHighly evocative, beautifully written, a world of striking colours, a tapestry of innocence, while the brutal reality of life encroaches into the travesty which is now modern Zimbabwe. - Daily ExpressPrecise, evocative and funny. Even as the Smith regime crumbles, as Mugabe waits to exact revenge and you know disillusionment is going to follow, you are irresistibly drawn into this personal story. A fine book. - Justin Cartwright, Daily Mail

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Lauren St John

Lauren St John

Lauren St John grew up surrounded by horses, dogs, cat, warthogs, and a giraffe on a farm and game reserve in Zimbabwe, the inspiration for her bestselling White Giraffe and One Dollar Horse series, and standalone novels, The Snow Angel and The Glory.

Her latest books are Finding Wonder. Wave Riders and the Wolfe & Lamb Mystery series.

Kat Wolfe Investigates won the 2019 CrimeFest Best Crime Novel for Children, and Dead Man's Cove, the first in her Laura Marlin Mystery series, was the 2011 Blue Peter Book of the Year.

A passionate conservationist, Lauren is an Ambassador for the Born Free Foundation, a Patron of Mane Chance Animal Sanctuary, and the founder of Authors4Oceans. When not writing or saving leopards and dolphins, she is a full-time valet to her cats, Skye and Teddy.

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