"From the acclaimed author of Tin Man comes a captivating, lively new novel of people brought together across four decades of love, war, art, flood, and the ghost of E. M. Forster"-- Tuscany, 1944: As Allied troops advance a young English soldier, Ulysses Temper, finds himself in the wine cellar of a deserted villa. There, he has a chance encounter with Evelyn Skinner, a middle-aged art historian who has come to Italy to salvage paintings from the ruins and recall long-forgotten memories of her own youth. In each other, Ulysses and Evelyn find a kindred spirit. As Ulysses returns home to London, reimmersing himself in his crew at The Stoat and Parrot-- a motley mix of pub crawlers and eccentrics-- he carries his time in Italy with him. When an unexpected inheritance brings him back to where it all began, Ulysses knows better than to tempt fate, and returns to the Tuscan hills. -- adapted from jacket