MY DEATH by Lisa Tuttle, intro by Thomas Tessier, cover art by Mark Harrison. Harrogate, UK; PS Publishing; 2004.

When Helen Ralston's biographer first saw the novelist's painting of a Scottish island, she thought it was an undistinguished watercolour landscape. A closer look revealed the most disturbingly erotic picture of a woman she'd ever seen. Dated 1929 and mysteriously labelled "My Death," the painting was clearly a self-portrait from a critical moment in Helen's relationship with W.E. Logan, her art teacher and one of the most important Scottish artists of the period. Whatever happened during their visit to an uninhabited island changed both of their lives profoundly, and was clearly the key to all their future work. But Helen, now in her late nineties, is unhelpful, and her biographer finds herself becoming obsessed with uncovering the truth - a truth that seems, somehow, to connect with her own life. Lisa Tuttle's powerful and evocative novella brilliantly explores an intense and tragic relationship in a hothouse world of love, sex, death and creativity.