It was the last chance Guy Fallows would give himself. A stunning 16th-century Provençal dovecote he'd found while hiking had given him both the inspiration and the material necessary to write a new novel. It had also led him to Solange Daubigny who'd inherited that seemingly weightless structure, years earlier. Together they found themselves enveloped in a clandestine affair: each Thursday, the elegant, highly sedate Solange flourished under the pseudonym of Frédérique. As their passion grew, so did the tower in Fallows' novel.

The dovecote also led Fallows to reconstitute its recent history. For, during the war years, it had been restored to its present glory by an obscure Italian stonemason, Guido Stampelli. How, though, had Solange's mother - who'd commissioned the work - paid for such labour, given that she'd been left penniless by her husband, despised collaborator who'd fled to West Africa?

In Gustaf Sobin's consummate narrative one hypnotically absorbing love story reflects another. Like the limestone monument itself his novel soars to a power quite its own.

Author of four novels, three of essays on Provence, and many volumes of poetry, Gustaf Sobin lived in Provence for over 40 years.