Vanessa Spence was born in Kingston, Jamaica, and was educated at the Universities of Oxford and Yale. She lives in the Blue Mountains.

This is a deceptively simple tale of the hazardous and uncharted battle zones between gender, culture, and race. Spence tells the story of a young Jamaican woman who by accident meets an aging American and his wife. A friendship forms between Katherine and the American, and this relationship ultimately leads to Katherine's acquiring her longed-for house in the remote hills above Kingston that she so loves.