<p><b>''Brave and ambitious'' <i>Independent </i></b><br><br>In a near-future London, Sappho, Picasso and Handel each set upon the same plan - to flee the city by train. Finding themselves fellow passengers, the poet, the painter and the musician discover their fates drawn together by the curious agency of a book.<br> As stories within stories unfold and journeys intersect, another world comes to the fore - one of painful beauty, where language has the power to heal.<br><br><br><b>''Winterson''s belief in love, beauty, and most of all, language, is evangelical and redemptive...it is timely and exciting to read'' Rachel Cusk, <i>The Times</i></b></p>