THE RESTORATION ARTIST

When Leo, a young American painter arrives on La Mouche, a tiny island off the coast of Normandy, he is in crisis. Two years earlier, his wife and child were killed in a terrorist attack in Cyprus.

The local priest, Père Caron, sensing that he is a lost soul, hopes that the island will in time work its magic. Soon, Leo, struggling with guilt and despair, becomes intrigued by two people: an ambitious female composer who is fighting demons from her past and an orphaned boy whose wildness masks an inability to speak. But can he ever move beyond his own losses, and find,
perhaps, a new definition of love?

This luminous novel explores the intersection of creativity and love and the ways in which the past is inextricable from the present. DeSoto's marvellous painterly eye, his affinity for the natural world, and his deep insight into human nature - in particular, the act of artistic creation - have produced an unforgettable work of fiction set in a landscape that is the stuff of dreams.