Sometimes nineteenth-century France seems more conducive to illicit love than does twenty-first-century Scotland.

Maria Jameson, an Edinburgh-based academic married to another and in the midst of a complicated affair with a third, wonders how the French writer George Sand managed her numerous and high-profile love affairs, among them a notorious liaison with Frederic Chopin. As Maria's own life changes and her husband and young lover both abandon her, there is nothing for her to do but immerse herself completely in the biography she is writing of Sand. As she does so, the author's spirit becomes a significant part of her daily life.

Maria quickly realizes that Sand has taught her about much more than just her life as a writer and lover, and that she is closer to becoming George than she had first thought. Through her work on Sand, Maria moves from the self-centred intensity of her affair to a larger and deeper connection to herself, her family and the wider world. In a story reminiscent of Becoming Jane Austen and The Hours, Rosalind Brackenbury gives us a portrait of two women of courage and vision - both learning how to live, love and write on.