The journey of a man who loses everything in one terrible moment

When Leo, a young painter, arrives on La Mouche, a tiny island off the coast of Normandy, in 1966, he is in crisis, devastated by the loss of his French wife and child. The local priest, Père Caron, hopes that the island will in time work its magic and free Leo from guilt and despair. Soon, Leo finds himself strangely drawn to two troubled people: Lorca, a brilliant composer fighting demons from her own past, and Tobias, an orphaned boy whose wildness masks an inability to speak. But can Leo ever move beyond his own losses to find, perhaps, a new definition of love and the restoration of hope?

This luminous novel from the acclaimed author of A Blade of Grass explores the intersection of creativity and love and the ways in which the past is woven into the present. DeSoto's marvellous painterly eye, his affinity for the natural world and his deep insight into human nature-in particular, the act of artistic creation-have produced an unforgettable work of fiction set in a landscape that is the stuff of dreams.