"A LUSH AND LYRICAL WORLD FULL OF SIGNS AND WONDERS... A COMPELLING MEDITATION ON LOVE, ART, AND THE VICISSITUDES OF LOVE." -San Francisco Chronicle In a literary debut of breathtaking acclaim, Niall Williams has crafted a stunning novel of love and loss, madness and miracles, magic and reality. Hauntingly told and beautifully wrought, it is the story of Nicholas and Isabel, whose hearts were drawn by the winds of destiny. There was, after all, no reason for them to have met. He came from Dublin; she from a wild side isle off the West Irish coast. Both, however, knew how lives could be shattered by he dawn of one day. In search of his artist father's lost masterwork, Nicholas would come to Isabel's door, and would find that passion had in unexpectedly ignited his life... and hers. Blessed by fate, Nicholas and Isabel would learn that nothing in the world is random, and every step is measured, that every moment counts...and that time and envy are forces to be reckoned with.