Date: 2001

Author: Paul Bailey

Kitty Crozier’s chance London encounter with Romanian refugee drifter Virgil Florescu blossoms into an improbable but perfectly plausible love affair. Virgil’s marred past, however, circumvents their future. This is a time-machine novel about longing and unfulfilled hopes. Bailey has the uncanny gift of reaching over his shoulder and backward into an Eastern Europe of commanding ghosts. A deeply ambitious and touching book whose vivid Virgil is transcendent.