Divisadero is a street in San Francisco and was once the boundary between the city and the adjacent fields of the Presidio, though some say it gets its name from a hill named El Divisadero, which is what the French would call a point de vue. Both meanings – a division and a distant perspective – are relevant to this powerful, weirdly beautiful, sometimes baffling, always compelling novel by the author of ‘The English Patient’.
The first part is set in the prickly, as yet wild landscapes of California’s Sonoma County, some time in the posthippy, pre-Gulf War 80s. Anna, Claire and Coop grow up together discovering their world under the watchful, moody eye of Anna’s father, a widowed farmer. Anna and her adopted sister Claire are the same age. They could be twins but for the fact they have different mothers, both of whom died in childbirth in the same week at the same hospital. Coop is a few years older than the girls, and has found a new home with them after the murder of his father, a neighbour.

It was a chance happening that led Sarah Leedam to the picturesque fishing village of Barfleur. She had said goodbye to her stall in the Greenwich Arts and Crafts market, where she made and sold beautiful clothes under the brand name ‘Pink Sarah’, in order to sail her eight-metre yacht to the Mediterranean.
However, by the time she reached Guernsey the weather had deteriorated and she sought harbour on the Normandy coast.

Instantly smitten with the Cotentin peninsular she bought a stone cottage 200 metres from the beach. She spent two years living on her boat while she renovated the house but missed the creativity of her old job.
Putting down roots was the impetus she needed to relaunch her business Pink Sarah – but this time in France.
Setting up a business in France is never easy but because Sarah became an officially unemployed person in France (although she was not entitled to any benefits) she was able to receive valuable help, advice and support, which made the whole process much easier.