On a picturesque island near Istanbul, hidden among pine and pomegranate trees, lies a secret refuge for artists of all kinds: painters, architects, writers, musicians. People come here in search of lost inspiration, peace, and quiet. The Scottish artist Elspet Conroy, known on the island as Nell, left the London art scene of the sixties, having lost faith in herself. She has lived in the refuge for many years, experimenting through the nights with pigments in search of the perfect paint for her future masterpiece. The peaceful life on the island is disturbed by the arrival of a new resident — seventeen-year-old Fullerton. Nell suspects the boy is in danger and wants to help him, but first she must find out what causes his night terrors, why he ran away from England, and what he is working on in his workshop. A delicate, captivating, and completely unpredictable novel about the nature of creativity, the ghosts that haunt us, and how the most beautiful and terrible things are carried within us.