Danielle, young, naïve and idealistic, embarks on her career as an actress, seeking the passion and fulfillment of both love and art, and is inexorably drawn to great drama - on stage and off. Ripe for every kind of experience, she falls passionately in love with a poet, fourteen years her senior, to whom she gives herself, body and soul. She sees him as a 'Greek god', until it transpires that he has a dark secret. Their love affair explodes around the theatre in Canterbury, and in a run-down cottage on the outskirts of town. But can she love him - and live with the fallout from his secret?What will happen if the barrier falls? An unexpected intrusion takes them, together and separately, to other places... The novel is a poetic exploration of obsessive first love: the passion and the ecstasy, the pain and despair. It is deeply erotic, complex and disturbing. It is also a spiritual odyssey... But will it bring redemption? Cover illustration by Pat Chester