A SWEEPING, emotional, rollercoaster of a novel that chronicles the lives of English actress Harriet Smithson and French composer Hector Berlioz, who meet after Harriet embarks on a bold project to bring Shakespeare to Paris.

The time is 1827 and Smithson and Berlioz are riding the high tide of a revolutionary movement in art which sets out to free the soul of the artist to travel new paths and seek new dimensions.

Morgan's writing has that revolutionary fervour in plenty, the ability to exhilarate and entrance, but he also gives the reader a glimpse of the soul of the artist at work.