The reinvention of love
(Adult Book)

When Charles Sainte-Beuve, an ambitious French journalist, meets Victor Hugo, a young writer on the verge of fame, he finds himself in a world of great passions, a world in which words can become swords. Soon Charles finds himself attracted to Victor's long-suffering wife, Adele. Set during the tumultuous reign of Napoleon III, and sweeping from France to the Channel Islands, to Halifax and back, this book draws on a rich portrait of the old city, where duels are fought in its parks and cholera-ridden bodies float in the Seine. An atmospheric, delicately wrought story of inescapable family ties and forbidden love.