At the time of the series, slavery had been abolished for some time, but segregation, similar to the Jim Crow Laws, continues to operate to keep the Crosses (dark-skinned people) in control of the Noughts (lighter-skinned people). An international organisation, the Pangaean Economic Community, exists. Seeming to be similar to the United Nations in scope but similar to the European Union in powers, it is playing a role in forcing change by directives and boycotts. Britain is known as Albion, Africa is one country called Zafrika, and Scandinavia is too, known as Fenno-Scandia, the only Nought country left.

She meets Jaxon, a hot-tempered man with a band, the Midges. He offers Sephy a singing part, but the Noughts are prejudiced against her because she is a Cross. In her emotional turmoil, she begins to neglect Callie Rose.After her friend Tobey calls her a terrorist's daughter, Callie struggles with discovering the real career of her father: he was considered a terrorist. She becomes angry with her mother for hiding the truth and decides to follow in the path of her father, cutting off her friendship with Tobey despite his attempts to apologise. Celebrities' open letter to Scotland – full text and list of signatories". The Guardian. 7 August 2014 . Retrieved 26 August 2014. Sephy - now in her fifties, with her first marriage gone, Sephy enters her relationship with Sonny. Sephy is still the character that we first loved reading about and it’s nice to see her relatively happy in this book.

Tobey's guilt over Rebecca's death leads him to believe he no longer deserves Callie Rose, estranging himself from her. Sephy and Nathan marry, and she's pregnant with a son, Troy, by Callie Rose's next birthday. During the party, Tobey and Callie Rose have a huge argument over his continued secrecy about his involvement in McAuley's death. He decides to end his and Callie Rose's relationship for good. She is also a writer whose own life has been shaped by books, from her childhood in south London, the daughter of parents who moved to Britain from Barbados as part of the Windrush Generation, and who experienced a childhood that was both wonderful and marred by the everyday racism and bigotry of the era. She was told she could not apply to study her first love, literature, at university, in spite of her academic potential, but found a way to books and to a life in writing against a number of obstacles. Aware of McAuley's intent to kill him, Tobey sets up a plan with Owen Dowd, Rebecca's brother. He invests in one of McAuley's minions to frame him as a traitor. The plan works, but Owen and Tobey are almost killed in the process. However, one of Tobey's friends, Dan, comes in and kills McAuley's minions, saving both their lives. Dan then goes on the run for the murders. As I am, and always will be a Nought, how the hell can I compare it to being anything else… I really couldn’t remember any Cross political candidate being asked how it felt to be a Cross doing the same job… That was just taken as the default position. It was as if the rest of us who were WAME – white and mixed-ethnic – were aberrations… Crosses were one group and everyone else got lumped into the WAME category like we were all one, big, homogenous mass and not worthy of distinct categorization.” Dare to be Different" (illustrated by Jane Ray) in the multi-author collection Dare to be Different, Bloomsbury Publishing, 1999, ISBN 0-7475-4021-7But this did not meet my admittedly high expectations. The story focuses on Troy, Sephy's son and Callie-Rose's half-brother and Libby, Troy's much-loathed classmate who was bought up in poverty. However, when the two find themselves kidnapped they are forced to put aside their dislike for one another and work out what this may have to do with Callie-Rose (a high-flying lawyer) and Tobey (currently in line to be the first ever Nought Prime Minister).

The Nought and Crosses saga (which I think we can totally go there now with three generations of both) is one of those stories that has all of the above and more. Rebecca Dowd: Vanessa Dowd's daughter. She is a rich Cross who makes her money from drugs, illegal shipments and more. She briefly dates Tobey after falling in love with him but is killed by Alex McAuley, the Dowd family's archenemy. She is very lonely and Tobey loves her, unlike other boys, for reasons other than her family and her money. However, Tobey remains in love with Callie Rose. Callie - now a successful lawyer, still strong and now in a position of power (which she definitely deserves)Kamal tells Sephy that if she keeps her child, Callum will be hanged, but if she has the abortion, he will serve years in prison instead. Kamal makes a similar offer to Callum, wanting Callum to publicly admit to raping Sephy. Both decide to keep the baby, and Callum is hanged at the gallows. Minerva "Minnie" Hadley: Sephy's older sister; she and Sephy are not very close, as Minnie is often shown to be quite selfish. She marries an affluent Cross, Zuri, and they have a son, Taj. Callie Rose's best friend and later boyfriend, Tobey, is worried about his own future. As a Nought boy at an exclusive school, he hopes to keep out of trouble, go to university, get a good job and leave behind the dangerous streets of his childhood. However, he gets caught up in gang warfare when he's offered the chance to earn some easy money by making a few "deliveries." He finds out the delivery was for one of the prominent members of the Dowds, a notorious gang of Crosses.