Jarrett-Macauley's 2005 novel takes as its subject matter the conflict in Sierra Leone, drawing imaginatively on "both the European canon and African oral traditions to illuminate the sufferings of child soldiers and their families". The book was widely and positively reviewed, including by such as Aminatta Forna ("A deeply affecting and vividly told story of ordinary people with the courage to survive... A wonderful book"), Bernardine Evaristo in "Wasafiri" ("This is a very serious and significant choice of subject matter for a debut novel; ambitiously rendered, it proves fertile and potent ground for fiction."), Francis Wheen ("An extraordinary novel about war, childhood, art and salvation. Shakespearean tragedy recast in modern Africa, transformed into a redemptive vision as magical as a midsummer night's dream."), while Lucy Beresford remarked in "The Literary Review": "...her understated prose a foil to the bleak and disturbing subject matter. ...sensitively establishes the family as a microcosm of the ruptured nation... and Shakespeare provides an inspirational and uplifting agent of therapy."