Lucy is a painter. She has everything: fame, money and reputation. She also has Oscar. At least, he has always been there. One fine day, she will do something about that. It was, as she says, hardly a love affair, more a kind of marriage. Perhaps, even war-torn France is safe enough on the Oscar front. But Lucy is deceiving herself. Set before and after the second world war in London, Edinburgh, Saint-Valery-sur-Somme, Dundee and a remote village in war-time France, two painters struggle to come to terms with the casual brutality of war. A love story. Alan Kennedy's fourth novel - a masterly account of love, loss and reconciliation. "A haunting and captivating love story. A skilfully articulated plot which holds the reader from start to finish. The exploration of the young artist's creative imagination as she struggles to come to terms with the banal horrors of war and her own engulfing emotions." Deborah Swallow, M�rit Rausing Director, Courtauld Institute of Art.