Grace Andreacchi

A short novel written in poetic and elliptical prose, rich in emotion, sometimes playful, sometimes tragic. Set in the opera world of Berlin just after the fall of the Wall, 'Poetry and Fear' is a gripping tale of spiritual love and pain and the whole damn thing. Orpheus singing in the Underworld. The melancholy Queen of Spain. For everyone who's ever been there, or wants to be....

Revealing a Paris both elegant and tawdry, this novel opens during the French bicentennial celebrations of July 1989. It concerns the affair of an American woman with Stephane, a brilliant, though drunken, violinist, and depicts her efforts to save Stephane from his wife, "The Monster".

'I stole out of Carlsbad at three in the morning, otherwise I hardly would have been allowed to leave.' These are the opening words of Goethe's 'Italian Journey', and it was this mysterious, pungent diary that would eventually result in the novel Scarabocchio. To jump into a coach in the depths of the night, to run away from the oppression of one's delightful and highly-placed friends, one's work, fame, fortune, obligations and plunge headlong into the great adventure, careering over the Alps, aiming for the bright golden heart of civilisation, the only baggage one's poetical discontent... Add to this the Goldberg Variations of J.S. Bach, a fascination with murderous Sicilian puppets, a runaway diva, Beethoven's other nephew (the one who also shot himself in the head but, unlike Carl, appears, at least partially, to have survived), a catalogue of child murders and possible murderers, a treatise on the beauty of imaginary architecture and the golden section and you begin to get some idea of Scarabocchio. A piece of dizzying metafiction, a whirlwind journey through Sicily with an iconic German poet, a Canadan Bach specialist, a runaway diva and many others...

Set in England, Boston and the Caribbean, this Pinteresque, artfully crafted story describes a relationship between Justine, a young dancer, and Roy, her philosophy teacher at Oxford. A story of love and sex, pain and intellect, and ultimate redemption. The story is narrated by Justine, who chronicles her own awakening.