Alice is fourteen when the six year old boy becomes aware of her working in the garden next door. Little does he realise then that she will become the shaper of his destiny as she guides him into manhood through a timeless maze of mystery, love, lust and achievement. Who is this bewitching girl and what does she represent? Anthony Weedon ensures that his readers will speculate on these questions until the closing stages of the book when her true significance in the life of Boy, now an old man, is finally revealed. The narrative bears the reader through an interactive world of rural conflict acted out in the lives of a fascinating set of believable country folk with the delectable Alice at the heart of everything. This work is a celebration of the true glory of independent womanhood in the form of Alice who bestows the artichokes of her largesse upon mankind in the person of Boy.