REAP THE FORGOTTEN HARVEST
Remi Kapo

The year is 1617.  Chased across the North Yorkshire Moors by the Puritans, the Flemings, a landed Catholic family flee England's shores for exile. Establishing themselves on the Caribbean island of Pertigua, they join the burgeoning European trade in African slaves, to sow the island's acres with sugar. 
 
On the coast of Guinea, the Sodekes, a farming family from the southern village of Ake, are suddenly impoverished by a violent storm, blamed on the wrath of the god Sango.  The two Sodeke brothers, Kayode and Taiwo, search for the magical Sese beans, the only known antidote to Sango's visitations. En route, they rescue Asabi, a terrified young woman who has just escaped an attack on her village by slavers. As they make the perilous journey back , a deep, passionate bond grows between Kayode and Asabi. But their triumphant homecoming is short-lived. Men from a vessel of the Royal African Company storm Ake, enslaving many of the villagers, including Kayode and Asabi. 
 
Separated and transported across the Atlantic, they are brutally set to work in Pertigua's canefields.  Despite Kayode's initial, humiliating encounter with Faith, the plantation owner's daughter, a strange and tender friendship develops between them.  Meanwhile, Kayode and Asabi plot to overthrow their masters.  With help from unexpected quarters, they lead a cataclysmic uprising, which is brutally quashed by the Redcoats. But as  blood is shed, so friendships are forged. But friendships, like enmities, are not always as they seem.
 
Reap the Forgotten Harvest  is an epic tale of suffering, faith, persecution, injustice, enslavement, passion, unexpected friendships, adventure, love and redemption. Its narrative embraces the drawing rooms of London as share prices collapse, the coffeehouses of the Strand, the holy-stoned decks of sailing ships, threatening rainforests, snake-infested canefields and the hopelessness of chattel-houses. 
 
Remi Kapo has enjoyed a varied career in journalism and the arts, running The Round House for a number of years and involving himself in many other cultural projects concerned with improving black and white relationships. This is his first novel.