Ceylon is on the verge of independence when a chance meeting puts a beautiful Englishwoman on the pillion seat of a charming Sri Lankan's motorbike. Equally unconventional - he longs to be free of the caste system's conformity, she to rise above colonial society's complacent racism - Emil and Evelyn seem an ideal match. Defying their families, they marry and move to a drab postwar Britain that distrusts flamboyance and dislikes it even more when it comes with a dark skin. Slovo's narrative skips from the couple's touchingly rendered early meetings to a gossipy drinks party, through embarrassing department-store incidents and family rows into the social revolutions of the 60s. Its fast tempo, and Slovo's easy but unsentimental style, makes Black Orchids hard to put down. But it also means her characters rarely feel fully enunciated. Emil, who owes his wealth to rubber and his wilful eccentricity to never having quite belonged anywhere, is interesting enough, and his son Milton gets a few moments of comic glory, but other writers have taken similar journeys with rather more panache and resonance.