About this item
A provocative and absorbing novel about a teenage girl's intoxicating romance with a powerful older man and her discovery, decades later, that her happy memories are hiding a painful truth. A rising star in the London arts scene of the early 1970s, gifted composer Ralph Boyd is approached by renowned novelist Edmund Greenslay to score a stage adaptation of his most famous work. Welcomed into Greenslay's sprawling bohemian house in Putney, an artistic and prosperous district in southwest London, the musical wunderkind is introduced to Edmund's beautiful activist wife Ellie, his aloof son Theo, and his young daughter Daphne, who quickly becomes Ralph's muse. Ralph showers Daphne with tokens of his affection - clandestine gifts and secret notes. In a home that is exciting but often lonely, Daphne finds Ralph to be a dazzling companion for many years.
About the Author
Sofka Zinovieff was born in London and was educated at Cambridge. She has worked as a freelance journalist and lived in Moscow and Rome before settling in Athens with her Greek husband and their two daughters in 2001. Her book, Red Princess: A Revolutionary Life has been translated into ten languages and she is the author of Eurydice Street: A Place in Athens.
