'It's a difficult thing to crave, land, especially when your body is small. And a dangerous thing, too, when you have no business being there, when it's not even where you're from.

'Alice, an unrooted child of diplomats in South America; Violet, a newlywed settling in the Australian scrub; George, a gardener fleeing the violent Clearances.

'Three generations wander a world scarred by colonialism and disturbing scientific revelations, from the unearthing of the first dinosaur bones to the discovery that the continents drift, in a hypnotic novel about our passionate, uneasy affair with nature, in which we restlessly search for home.' (Author's abstract)

'Why was Ovid, the most popular poet of his day, banished from Rome? Why do only two lines survive of his play Medea, reputedly his most passionate, most accomplished work? Between the known details of Ovid's life and these enigmas, Jane Alison has created a haunting drama of psychological manipulation, and an ingenious meditation on love, art and immortality. When Ovid encounters a woman who embodies the fictitious creations of his soon-to-be published Metamorphoses, he is enchanted, obsessed, and inspired. Part healer, part witch, she seems to be myth come to life, and Ovid lures her away from her home by the Black Sea to Rome. But the inexorable pull of ambition leads him to make a Faustian bargain with fate that will betray his newfound muse.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.