A gorgeously written story of love and motherhood, this is a tour de forcefrom one of our best loved novelists. When the sophisticated Innes Kentturns up on her doorstep, Lexie Sinclair realises she cannot wait anylonger for her life to begin, and leaves for London. There, at the heart ofthe 1950s Soho art scene, she carves out a new life. In the present day,Elina and Ted are reeling from the difficult birth of their first child.Elina struggles to reconcile the demands of motherhood with sense ofherself as an artist, and Ted is disturbed by memories of his own childhoodthat don't tally with his parents' version of events. As Ted begins tosearch for answers, an extraordinary portrait of two women is revealed,separated by fifty years, but connected in ways that neither could everhave expected.